Tattered Wings
by KuroGalaxy14
Summary: Things were supposedly going normally in Metal Bey City. But then, when strange things start happening with the beys of the world, can Gingka and his friends find the cause and stop it before it is too late? Or will their world change forever?
1. Prologue

**Okay, so a couple of years ago I had promised myself that I would never again have two stories going at once. I am now breaking that promise to myself, BUT, it's for NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what that is, it's the acronym for National Novel Writing Month, meaning that during the month of November, people around really the whole world try to write a 50,000 word novel in just one month. SO, even though I have not yet finished Eye of the Storm 2, I am posting this story, because Tattered Wings is my NaNoWriMo novel. I do not know if I will finish it during this month. But I sure do plan on trying! So, without further ado, even though I meant to post this AFTER EotS2, enjoy the prologue for Tattered Wings.**

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Gingka knew where he was. He had had this nightmare many times before. It was always the same. He would open his eyes to the sight of flames, hearing people screaming and Nemesis towering over him, larger-than-life and just as frightening as he had been seven years ago when Gingka had faced him and defeated him. He would look down at his feet and see his bey, Pegasus, laying there defeated and shattered beyond repair. It terrified him the same every time, and he always longed for the moment when he would finally shoot up in bed, wide awake, and be able to remember the reality, that Nemesis had been defeated, hopefully never to return again.

Yet something was different this time. Gingka found that the rocks he was standing on were not an ugly, dusty brown, but sparkled with many different colors. Shattered buildings lay around him, with disfigured silhouettes that looked human running past him, away from the direction he was facing. Yet these figures were not human. Gingka could not place precisely what about them was different than people, but something inside of him told him that they were something else.

The stranger part about the whole thing, the redhead mused, was that, even though he could not see their faces, only their shapes, black against the burning city around him, he knew them. He could not place names to them, but he felt as if every last one of them was someone who he had met and knew closely. But who were they, if not human?

The flames seemed to rise ever higher, ominous in their flickering. Gingka trembled slightly, looking around in confusion. Was he in Metal Bey City this time? Yet no, none of the half-destroyed buildings or streets looked familiar. It was as if he were on an alien planet, which was strange. Gingka did not think aliens even existed. If they did, he was glad that they tended to keep to themselves rather than bothering the human race, which had enough problems of its own if you asked him.

"Look out!"

"He's coming!"

Various screams, repeating those four words, kept echoing from the fleeing creatures around him. Gingka turned, looking every which way to determine precisely what they were even running from. He had to admit that this was almost scarier than the usual nightmare. With this, he did not know what to expect, what he might find in this strange land his brain had placed him in. All at once, an enormous man was towering over him, looking down with a maniacal sneer on his face. Gingka froze. Was this what these creatures were afraid of? This man, no, creature, had to be at least twice his size. Whoever, or whatever, it was, it was clearly quite strong. And it was clearly trying to destroy all that stood in its path. Which of course, meant Gingka at the moment.

"Gingka!" A familiar female voice screamed as the giant in front of the redhead raised the giant sword in his hand and brought it down.

That was when Gingka finally awoke, shooting up in his bed the way he usually did, coated in a thin layer of sweat and gasping for air, trembling as he forced himself to relax and realize fully that it had all been a dream. Yet what had that been? It was nothing he had ever seen before, Gingka knew that much. And yet, it was familiar. Gingka rubbed his eyes with one hand, letting out a shaky sigh as he stared down at his lap, eyes narrowed as h e tried to recall the images he had just seen so he could place them in his mind somehow, discover what location he was remembering. But nothing came to mind.

"You alright, Gingka?" Madoka's voice called from outside his door as the brunette knocked.

"Yeah. Just another nightmare. I'm fine." Gingka called back, sighing and laying back down.

"Nemesis again?"

"... I don't think so. But it's passed now." Gingka replied. "Go on and go back to sleep. I'll be fine."

"If you say so." Madoka said skeptically, her footsteps indicating that she was indeed heading back to her own room in the B-Pit.

Gingka sighed and closed his eyes once more, trying to get back to sleep, although he quickly found that this was practically impossible. Eventually, once the sun began to peer over the tops of the buildings and into his window so that sleep became entirely impossible, he sat up again, climbing out of bed and stretching.

"Gingka! Are we going to the Bey Park again today? You still owe me a battle!"

Gingka chuckled as he heard Zero's voice.

"Obviously. I'm looking forwards to it still." He called back as he reached for his jacket and scarf, quickly changing into his normal clothing before buckling his belts and gear around his waist. "I just hope you're ready for defeat."

"Defeat? Not me! I'm going to beat you!" Zero shot back.

Gingka chuckled under his breath as he stepped out of his room. "You can definitely try, but Pegasus and I aren't gonna lose easily."

"I know." Zero grinned as he poked his head out of his room, messy hair sticking out in all directions. "But Ifrit and I won't go down easily either."

"That may be true of the bladers your age, but you forget, Pegasus is a Legendary Bey with the power of an extra Star Fragment." Gingka smirked, ruffling the younger blader's hair and messing it up further.

"Hey!" Zero protested, launching himself at the redhead, "That's not gonna matter in the long run because my bey spirit burns just as brightly as yours!"

Gingka laughed and sidestepped the teen's attempts at tackling him. "Good. It wouldn't be any fun if you weren't as enthusiastic as you are."

Zero grunted as he accidentally ran into the wall in a failed attempt at tackling Gingka. "Well what's the point of it if you aren't having fun?"

"Saving the world is usually a good point to things too." Gingka chuckled, squatting down and ruffling Zero's hair again, earning himself a blue-eyed glare for his trouble.

A flash of mischief shone in Zero's eyes for a moment before he suddenly launched from where he was laying on the ground and managed to finally tackle Gingka to the ground, causing the redhead to yelp in surprise as he fell over.

"Not fair! You caught me off guard!" Gingka protested, his golden-brown eyes twinkling with mischief as he began tickling his protege's ribcage.

Zero screeched in a rather undignified manner at this and fought back. The two bladers ended up rolling around the hallway, both laughing hysterically until tears came to their eyes.

"I.. Surrender!" Zero said eventually, gasping for breaths between laughing.

Gingka chuckled and stopped tickling him, sitting up with a smug grin on his face as Zero glared at him in amusement, trying to catch his breath.

"Well, now that you two are done with the morning wrestling, anyone want some breakfast?" Madoka laughed as she stood at the end of the hallway.

Gingka and Zero looked up and turned light pink from embarrassment.

"... How long have you been standing there?" Gingka asked slowly.

"About from when he tackled you." Madoka laughed. "Sometimes I wonder which one of you is really the adult here."

Gingka crossed his arms and grumbled something under his breath. Zero just laughed, still trying to catch his breath as he wrapped his arms around his torso, ribs aching from laughing so hard. Gingka grinned and ruffled Zero's hair one more time before standing and offering a hand to help the younger blader get up, which Zero accepted, although he pulled Gingka's headband over his eyes while he was at it. Madoka's eyes widened at this and she immediately flattened herself against the wall as Zero bolted past her, followed by Gingka as soon as the redhead managed to get his headband back into place.

"Well, I suppose they'll be wanting breakfast later once the chase has ended and they remember that they're hungry." The brunette chuckled under her breath as she heard the door to the shop slam shut, indicating that the two bladers had left the building and were off down the street to who-knew-where.

Gingka and Zero did not get very far down the street, however, as they each felt something pulsing from their carrier cases that indicated something was happening. Zero paused running, the urgency of escaping Gingka forgotten suddenly as he swiftly pulled out Ifrit and looked at it confusedly. He glanced back, only to see that Gingka was doing the exact same thing with his bey. Pegasus was glowing a faint blue color, pulsating in a strange manner. Gingka was staring at the silver and blue bey with wide, almost frightened- frightened?- eyes.

"What's wrong?" Zero asked, jogging back towards the older blader, although he was wondering why Ifrit was also glowing and pulsating, although at a different rate than Pegasus was.

Gingka swallowed, hard, and closed his eyes, clenching his hand tightly around his bey. "This had better not mean the same thing it did last time." He said, a slight tremor in his voice that frightened Zero more than the look in the redhead's eyes had.

Zero opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but, all at once, the glowing and pulsating from their beys stopped. Gingka opened his eyes and looked at Pegasus in surprise, raising an eyebrow as if expecting the bey to give an explanation for what was going on.

"No… If it was what happened last time then Ifrit would not have been doing it too…. So what happened…?" Gingka mused, before turning and looking at Zero, "By any chance did some blinding white light hit Ifrit recently?"

"Uhh… No?" Zero said slowly.

Gingka looked thoughtful. "Then why were they glowing…?" He wondered, looking back at Pegasus intently.

"... Maybe some of the others might have a clue?" Zero asked.

"Perhaps. If they don't then I know who will." Gingka said, beginning to walk off towards the distant Bey Park and WBBA Headquarters.

"Gingka! Zero!" Several other bladers ran up to them as they saw the two champions approaching.

"Our beys were glowing and doing this weird pulsing thing!"

"The beys battling in the stadium stopped responding to their bladers!"

"What's going on?"

"Is something bad going to happen?"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down." Gingka said, raising his hands and motioning the younger bladers to calm down and be quiet.

Gingka knew that he had to come up with some explanation that would not cause a panic. Which meant that he could not tell them a word of the idea that was on his mind. These bladers all ultimately looked up to him as the strongest in the world, who had to have the answers to anything bey-related because he was at the top, the most famous blader in the world. Rarely did the full weight of this responsibility settle on Gingka's shoulders, but it was now, and his next words could either return them to their usual heated battled without a care in the world, or incite a destructive panic. He doubted he could do the former. Beys glowing and pulsating was hard to explain away when you did not know the true reason for it. But he knew he absolutely could not do the latter. Striking fear was the job of his enemies. Soothing it was his job. So, despite the fear that was threatening to make its way into his eyes once more, Gingka smiled softly.

"Our beys did that too. I'm not sure what caused it, but if it's something dangerous, then we'll stop it. There's nothing to worry about." He said. "It's nothing to panic over."

"Mr. Gingka," One of the slightly older bladers spoke up, nervously, and Gingka's eyes shifted to him, "Is the Nemesis Crisis going to happen again?"

A look of sympathy flashed in Gingka's eyes for a moment before he smiled reassuringly. "Nah. Plus, even if it did, you know what we'd do?"

This question was met with several tilted heads and raised eyebrows. Gingka chuckled under his breath and held Pegasus high.

"We'd send him packing faster than last time, because we've been getting stronger while he's been sleeping." He said, rather loudly so that the younger bladers would take it as the battle cry that it was.

Gingka's words incited several cheers from the crowd of bladers as they all held their own beys high. Gingka lowered his and replaced it into his case, chuckling as the crowd ran off to resume battling.

"Well, that worked." Zero chuckled nervously once they were all gone. "You really don't know if it'll be alright though, do you?" He said seriously.

Gingka sighed and looked down, worry shining in his eyes. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this were Nemesis again. But don't tell anyone that. I don't want them to panic."

Zero's eyes widened. "You mean it's actually possible?"

"I'm not sure. But the last time Pegasus reacted like that, it was Nemesis. But that was only the Legendary Beys. So I don't know why Ifrit and everyone else's beys did this too." Gingka sighed. "Perhaps it is time to have Tsubasa call the others in a big group call."

"'Others'?" Zero tilted his head, following Gingka as the redhead began walking towards the WBBA Headquarters.

"The other Legendary Bladers." Gingka said. "This has to be something serious, whatever it is."

Zero's e yes widened slightly. "You mean calling all of them together?"

Gingka smiled in amusement and nodded. "Yeah. It'll be nice to see them all again, at least. Tsubasa has the contact information for many of them. He didn't have mine but if he'd had to, he could have called my father or one of my oldest friends to try to contact me. All of us managed to stay only one or two people away from being able to be contacted. Those of us who were harder to contact also managed to keep an eye on the news for anything that might be major. Then again, we did want the next generation to be able to defend itself, something you and your friends have already proven that you can do."

"Then why not call Shinobu and the others to see if they know anything?" Zero asked, jogging slightly to keep up with Gingka.

Gingka paused and looked thoughtful at this. "Not at all a bad idea. You know where they are?"

"Some of them are probably at Bey Park." Zero said. "If not then they will be eventually or are out training with the Manager."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they're with Benkei. I'll check there, you check the Bey Park. We'll meet up outside the WBBA in…" Gingka paused and looked at a watch hidden underneath the wrist part of his glove, "An hour should be enough time."

Zero nodded. "Alright. We'll be there." He said, running off towards Bey Park.

Gingka chuckled under his breath, smiling at the enthusiastic young blader. He hoped that Zero was not too afraid of what might be happening. The younger blader had definitely caught at least a glimpse of Gingka's initial frightened reaction earlier, when Pegasus and Ifrit had started glowing and pulsating. As Zero disappeared into the Bey Park, Gingka turned towards where he knew Benkei's training grounds were, running off to see if he could find anyone there.

Little did any of them know that what was about to happen would change everything they knew about their beys.

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 **Dun dun duuuun... Until next time, Galaxy out! XD**


	2. Hidden

**I'm back already with another chapter! -NaNoWriMo is going very well for me so far. Anyone else doing it too? How are you guys doing on it? XD- Anyway, enjoy the suspense! If you dare! Because I'm not letting up on it anytime soon!**

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"So basically, we have evidence that every bey in the world as far as we know, or at least the ones close around us, all at the same time, were glowing and pulsating. It seems like almost every country has something on the news about this and some people are panicking. What are we going to do?" Tsubasa asked, sitting in his director's chair with Zero, his friends, Benkei, Gingka, and Madoka standing or sitting in various places around his office.

"It was frighteningly similar to what happened with the Legendary Beys seven years ago when Nemesis first began waking up." Gingka said, "But it still seemed different somehow. I just can't put my finger on it."

"It's not only the beys who have bladers either." Madoka said. "All of the ones in the B-Pit were doing it too."

"So this spans across all beys, no matter what the power level or location." Shinobu said.

"The main question is, what could cause this?" Tsubasa said. "I sent a group to check out the place where the battle with Nemesis happened, but satellite images are showing nothing there."

"It's still possible that someone is trying to reawaken Nemesis." Gingka said. "That's the only thing we even know since other than that, nothing has happened before to cause beys to pulse like that."

"And even that didn't do it this widespread. So why would it now?" Benkei asked.

"I have a theory." Madoka said.

"Do tell then." Tsubasa said.

"Well, when Gingka defeated Nemesis, it was partly because the bladers of the world lent their power to him, right? So maybe all of the beys were linked at that point somehow and that's why they're all doing this." Madoka said.

"It sounds plausible to me." Gingka thought, frowning. "But the synchrome beys didn't exist yet then, yet Ifrit and the others were glowing too."

"I guess we basically just have to face the fact that we don't actually have an explanation." A voice spoke up from the back of the room, causing several of the others to turn and blink in surprise.

"Kira? What are you doing here?" Zero asked in surprise.

"I found him along my way back here and figured that he or his teammates might know something we don't so I asked him to come." Gingka said.

"Fair enough. Not like he's an enemy anymore anyway." Tsubasa chuckled.

Gingka nodded.

"Well, I don't have any tidbits of insight into your little problem here so I'll just be going then." Kira sighed, turning to leave.

All at once, everyone in the room, save for Madoka and Maru, froze, eyes widening for a split second. Gingka reached up and gripped the fabric of his shirt, just over his heart.

"Gingka, are you okay?" Madoka asked worriedly.

"Anyone else… Feeling this…?" Gingka asked, his voice and body trembling slightly.

"Some sort of unexplainable fear?" Zero whispered.

"More like an adrenaline rush for me." Gingka said softly, reaching out and steadying himself against the nearest wall. "But I'm just standing here."

"Our beys are pulsing again." Shinobu spoke up, holding Salamander up to show that it was indeed glowing and pulsing once more.

All at once, the pulsing and strange feelings stopped. Gingka panted softly, trying to place a finger on what had just happened. The others looked at him in concern, as he seemed to have been the most affected by it.

"Gingka, sit down." Tsubasa said worriedly. "You look like you're about to collapse."

"I'm fine." Gingka protested, breathing deeply. "It's passed, I'm fine."

"Sit down anyway." Benkei said, pulling a chair over and forcing Gingka into it by putting a hand on his shoulder firmly.

Gingka sighed softly and sat, crossing his arms and looking thoughtful.

"That seemed to be affecting more the ones who were stronger, I think." Maru said. "Because Gingka was the most affected by it."

"It was like a weird pressure." Zero mused, looking at Ifrit.

"It felt like being in the heat of a difficult battle that carried a huge amount of responsibility." Gingka said, quietly. "Like fighting Ryuga and Lightning L-Drago, or the Spiral Force, or even Nemesis all over again. But I wasn't battling anyone, and that's what is weird about it."

"Yeah. There's not even a battle going on." Madoka said.

"Maybe our beys can tell us more if they do battle." Zero said. "Let's let them go spin for a while and see what happens. If this has happened twice, I bet it's gonna happen again."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Gingka said, standing. "Plus it's the only idea we've got. Tsubasa… Mind contacting the other Legendary Bladers and asking them if they felt that same sort of thing that I did?"

Tsubasa nodded. "Sure. I'll contact the ones we have direct information for right now."

"The rest of us will head down to the Bey Park and begin our battle." Gingka said. "Madoka, Maru, I need you guys to scan our beys to see if you can figure out what is going on should they start doing that pulsing thing again."

Madoka nodded. "And if any of you guys start to feel like you did again then I think you should just sit down. I saw several of you nearly fall just now. You especially, Gingka."

Gingka nodded. "If I have the chance to realize I'm feeling bad before falling."

Zero and his friends glanced at each other, frowning, at this.

"Well, what are we waiting for? I'm joining into this too, Bu-bu-bull!" Benkei exclaimed.

Gingka laughed at the old war cry of his friend, while Zero and the others, who had never heard it, stared at Benkei in surprise.

"That's the spirit. Let's go then!" Gingka bolted off down the hallway before anyone could stop him.

"What are we waiting for?" Zero laughed and followed the redhead, with the others close behind him.

It was not long before the group reached the Bey Park, excited chattering filling the air as they entered to find the other bladers there looking frightened slightly. Gingka stepped up, his eyes blazing with a mixture of determination and excitement.

"We're gonna get to the bottom of whatever weird thing has been happening with our beys." He said, loudly enough that everyone could hear. "And to do that, we need you guys to help us. We're going to do an enormous battle royale. And we are going to find out what is happening to our beys. Who's with me?"

A resounding cheer echoed through the air at this declaration from the Legendary Blader. Gingka grinned and leapt up onto the waiting platform above the stadium, while Zero and several others took their positions up around the railings and on the opposite platform.

"Ready! Three!" Gingka called, raising his launcher and hooking Pegasus onto it in one swift motion.

"Two!" Madoka called as she and Maru took a seat in the stands, their computers out and ready to analyze all the data possible.

"One! Let it rip!" Everyone else called.

"Get him!"

Gingka laughed in excitement as he was charged by about half of the bladers in the stadium at once, the others battling amongst themselves or going after Zero and his friends.

"Get them, Pegasus!" The redhead whooped.

"Ifrit! Run hard!" Zero called.

Gingka grinned as his bey sped towards the others, picking up speed. It smashed through several of them at once with ease, knocking some out and others simply into the air.

"Something's happening!" Madoka called out as her computer picked up something moments before the bladers felt it.

Gingka's eyes widened as every single bey in the stadium simply stopped in its tracks for nearly a full minute, much to the confusion of everyone. Even Pegasus spun steadily in one place, the stadium itself ceasing to move with no force of moving beys pushing against it.

"Come on, Pegasus! Move!" Gingka called, but he felt no response from his bey.

"Ifrit?"

"Salamander! Come on!"

"Bull! Do SOMETHING already!"

Gingka felt as if his eyes had clouded over, as the view of the stadium was replaced by the burning scene he had seen the night before for an instant. He gasped sharply, causing several pairs of eyes to turn to him, eagerly, expecting some sort of answer. But he did not see them turn to him as the sword came down towards him in the eye of his mind all over again.

"Gingka! Snap out of it!" Benkei bellowed suddenly.

Gingka's body jerked slightly and he yelped as he nearly stepped backwards off the platform, catching himself on the railing just in time. At the same time, all of the beys jerked back into action as if nothing were wrong. Their bladers stared at them for a few seconds, sending worried glances over to Gingka from time to time until they saw him step up and take command over Pegasus once more, the silver and blue bey weaving wildly through their beys and taking several of them out.

"Get him, Ifrit!" Zero said, although he was worried about what had just happened with Gingka. Benkei sneakily stepped over and stood slightly behind and under the platform the redhead was standing on, ready to catch him just in case the previous events repeated themselves and Gingka did fall.

"Keep going, Pegasus!" Gingka whooped, having already forgotten about what had just happened due to being fired up about battling, or so it seemed.

In reality, Gingka was forcing himself to be fired up and into the battle, because he did not want the others to worry about him, to see how unnerved he was by the sight that had temporarily taken over his vision and nearly caused him to panic. He did not know why that sight had repeated itself when he was awake, but it was beginning to really freak him out. He wondered if it were related to the incidents with their beys pulsing, but how could an enormous man with a sword attacking him be related to beys?

"Gingka! Focus!" Benkei yelled. "Or we're gonna beat you!"

Gingka yelped as he snapped his attention back to the battle. "Pegasus!" He yelled as Bull knocked his bey into the air.

"Get him, Ifrit! Don't let him hit the ground!" Zero called, punching forwards as his bey charged towards the spot where Pegasus would undoubtedly land.

Gingka growled under his breath, the problem at hand forgotten as he tried to figure out how to get himself out of this problem.

"Go!" Benkei whooped as Ifrit smacked the falling Pegasus back into the air.

Gingka narrowed his eyes and smirked. "You do remember what Pegasus's main attack style is, right?" He asked smugly.

Benkei froze. "Oh snap." He said, turning a shade paler.

"... Huh?" Zero and some of the others, who had not battled Pegasus often enough to know what Gingka was referring to, looked confused.

Gingka merely grinned, his eyes blazing with mischief and excitement.

"Flight. Fly higher, Pegasus!"

"Dodge it Bull!" Benkei yelped, as Pegasus leapt out of sight into the sky and every other bey in the stadium began rushing about, eager to not be the bey that got hit.

"Pegasus! Stardust Driver!" Gingka whooped, his eyes gleaming as his bey glowed, diving down towards the others, who could not tell what it was targeting. All eyes focused for a moment on its trajectory, then swiftly drew a line down, trying to determine whether or not their beys were in danger of being hit by the attack that had taken out so many opponents before.

"Too late!" Gingka exclaimed as Pegasus glowed brightly blue, diving for Ifrit, which was darting back and forth in a manner that reflected the panic in Zero's eyes as the young blader tried to figure out whether to escape or try to block. The silver and blue bey dove down towards the silver and red one, as Ifrit raised its sword to block the attack somehow.

Madoka suddenly stood, staring at her computer screen in shock as it told her something new. She tried to shout to Gingka what she had just found out, but the look in his eyes and sudden motionlessness of his body told her that he had already figured it out. A few moments later, everyone else figured it out too, as Pegasus's brilliant blue glow abruptly cut off, and Ifrit was easily able to deflect the silver and blue bey that should have sent it flying out of the stadium.

"What just happened?!" Benkei exclaimed, Bull stopping in its tracks as all eyes turned to Gingka, who was just staring in bewilderment and shock at his bey, which had landed safely back in the stadium, barely spinning.

"P-Pegasus?" Gingka called out, his voice echoing the confusion on his face.

"I don't know what happened, but Pegasus suddenly lost all of its power!" Madoka called. "It has nothing on the stats anymore, when just two seconds ago it had the highest levels of everything!"

Everyone turned to Gingka for an explanation at this, then looked back to Madoka, who was typing furiously on her computer and trying to determine what had just happened, with no clear results. Gingka was holding onto the railing with a white-knuckled grip, his entire body shaking slightly as he tried to wrap his mind around what was going on. He had felt it at the same moment Madoka had noticed it. Moments before Pegasus had his Ifrit, all of its power had been lost. But how? And where had it gone? Gingka did not dare say what he had felt out loud. He hoped that none of the other bladers would get this 'symptom' of whatever was going on.

One thing was for sure, Gingka thought. Getting all of one's power drained away to somewhere else at once was quite the sickening feeling. The redhead fought to keep control of his body, feeling sick and lightheaded and weak, oh so very weak, all at once.

"What's happening to Pegasus?" Zero called out suddenly, attracting all attention away from Gingka and Madoka and back to the stadium.

Gingka's eyes widened and he froze once more in shock, watching as Pegasus was seemingly drained of all color, becoming a dull, one could describe it as lifeless, grey rather than the shining silver and blue it had previously been. The fire in Gingka's eyes died down at precisely the same rate as the color drained from Pegasus. As the last few areas faded, everyone in the area could have sworn they heard two voices screaming. One, as a quick glance around soon revealed, came from Gingka's own throat. But it was the other, fiercer in tone and laced with a sort of wildness yet gracefulness that could not be described or attributed to any human voice, that scared them more. The moment the screams faded, both blader and bey fell over simultaneously.

"Gingka!" Zero and the others called out worriedly, while Benkei scrambled up the platform and lifted their fallen friend into his arms worriedly.

"Is he alright?!" Shinobu called out, and all of the bladers looked to Benkei for the answer, subconsciously holding their breaths.

"Well… He's alive and seems alright, but I think he's unconscious." Benkei replied, sounding worried as he lowered the platform, checking Gingka's pulse and breathing at the same time.

"We should get him back to the B-Pit." Madoka said softly, soon reaching Benkei and Gingka. "And call a doctor, just in case."

Benkei nodded as Zero and the others ran over, worried at the sight of the slightly pale, limp Legendary Blader.

"Zero, you need to say something to calm them down. They've just seen one of their heroes fall for an unknown reason that is obviously related to whatever weird thing is happening to our beys." Benkei said.

"W-what?! Why me?!" Zero asked.

"Because you're the second most well-known person here. And they know that Gingka gave you Ifrit. So in their eyes, you're essentially his heir and the one who is supposed to surpass him. It doesn't have to be much. Just enough to reassure them that everything is going to be okay." Madoka said.

Zero gulped nervously and nodded before turning around to the crowd behind him, his blue eyes meeting with the frightened eyes of several dozen bladers, all watching him. He slowly raised a hand and caught Ifrit out of the air, almost afraid that the bey would follow the suit of the one lying motionless in the center of the stadium and be drained of its power. He took a deep breath, remembering what Gingka had done just a couple of hours earlier, hiding his own fear to calm the fears of the ones who were not as strong as he was.

"What's gonna happen now?" One of the other bladers called out.

"Will Mr. Gingka be okay?!" Another asked.

Zero looked back to them all, clenching both his teeth and the hand that held Ifrit. "Yeah! We're all gonna be just fine because we're bladers and we don't give up! Gingka's strong! He'll pull through whatever just happened to him and Pegasus, and we're gonna find out what happened to them and kick the butt of whoever is responsible! Who's with me?"

After Zero's shakily-voiced battle cry, the stadium fell silent for a few moments. The Ifrit wielder gulped. Had he only made things worse? Yet his fears soon turned out to be unfounded, as all of the other bladers grabbed their beys from the stadium and began cheering, their war cries echoing through the building and even outside, where the gathering of several black, lightning-filled clouds was beginning to indicate that this… was only the beginning.

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 **You are very much welcome for the cliffhanger. Until next time, Galaxy out!**


	3. Vanishing Point

**I'm back again with another chapter! Hopefully I can keep up this writing streak at the same pace I have been. According to the NaNoWriMo site, I'll finish early if I do. We shall see! In the meantime, enjoy!**

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The landscape that greeted Gingka when he opened his eyes once more was one that was much more welcome than the ones he had been seeing. Rather than burning buildings or desolate wastelands, he found himself surrounded by a familiar, warm glow. A soft sigh of relief escaped his lips as he looked around expectantly for the only other being who was ever in this space. Soon enough, he saw the creature he was looking for. His footsteps rang out across an invisible ground, echoing softly as he slowly walked towards the winged horse that had been his partner for years.

"Pegasus?" He called softly, walking up behind the horse, which was laying down with its legs tucked partially underneath it, head laid atop one of its folded wings, armor cracked and worn. Gingka looked worried at this. Normally, the winged horse's armor was gleaming brightly. And it had always been standing, facing him and waiting expectantly for him to come to it. This time, however, his partner seemed to barely notice he was there.

Gingka put a hand on the forehead of the horse, eyes slightly wide in worry and fear. A soft whinny echoed as Pegasus raised its head slightly, looking up at him in a forlorn manner.

"What is going on here…" Gingka whispered, falling to his knees next to the winged horse and throwing his arms around its neck, trying not to panic. He sighed and closed his eyes as he felt the underside of Pegasus's head press against his back, holding him closer against the powerful neck that his arms were around.

"You're losing power somehow, why is that…" Gingka muttered.

Pegasus nickered softly in response. Gingka's eyes snapped open and widened at this as he tilted his head up to look into the eye of the winged horse.

"You're kidding…" He breathed. Pegasus shook its head, causing Gingka to frown deeply.

"Then what can we do to stop it?" Gingka wondered, brushing his fingers through the mane of the horse and enjoying the way the coarse hairs felt. He had always enjoyed being able to physically see and touch the mythological creature which he had been the partner to for all of these years now.

Pegasus let out a soft sigh before snorting, as if saying something sarcastic.

Gingka sweatdropped. "Well excuse me if the sudden shock of what happened forced me into unconsciousness. At least I can get a better explanation from you this way." He said, sitting down crosslegged by the horse's head, gazing calmly at it before reaching up to its head with both hands and grasping at the two edges of the armor that covered its face.

"You need the power to fight then." He said, returning to the matter at hand as he felt underneath the armor for the near-invisible buckles that held it on.

Pegasus whinnied softly.

Gingka sighed. ""I understand that, but what if it doesn't work?" He asked, unclasping the buckles as he found them and removing the cracked armor from the horse's head so that he could see its face better.

The horse paused before snorting softly, its breath blowing through Gingka's fingers as he placed his hand on its nose.

"Find who?" Gingka blinked. "Where?"

Pegasus let out a huff, a shudder running down its spine as it adjusted its wings.

"I see…" Gingka looked thoughtful. "Okay. I understand." He looked back up at the horse with a smile, ruffling the part of its main between its ears, something he knew that it hated. Just as he had expected, a slight tick mark appeared on the horse's face before it nudged him in the chest with its nose, knocking him over and catching him against its wing.

Gingka chuckled and half-buried himself in the soft feathers, running his hands down them in long, smooth strokes. "I'll do what you said. But you be careful, alright?"

Pegasus merely snorted once more and began to place its hooves back on the ground. Gingka glared.

"I am not THAT bad." He said defensively.

Pegasus tossed its head and heaved itself to its feet, stretching its wings.

"Well okay you have a point, but still!" Gingka crossed his arms as he stood.

Pegasus's response was to let out a grunting noise before knocking him over with one wing and sitting back down on its haunches, looking quite pleased with itself as Gingka got back to his feet and launched himself at it, trying to shove it over, but its widely-planted front hooves prevented him from accomplishing this.

"I know I've always relied on you." Gingka panted, eventually giving up and just standing next to the horse with one hand intertwined with its mane. "That's why I don't know what to do in this case. Your power has always been the solution to other problems like this, but now I can't use you to battle through this."

Pegasus stomped one foot and stood again, spreading its wings.

"Do I have to wake up from this…?" Gingka sighed. "It's much more pleasant than the dreams I have been having or what's going on right now. You know that."

Pegasus turned its head around and nudged him up against its flank. Gingka sighed and leaned his head against the horse's neck.

"I know… I know I have to. Just like I've always had to be the one to lead the charge." He sighed. "But you said it yourself. I've only been able to do it before because I've had your help. So how am I supposed to 'rescue' you without the one thing I've always used to save everyone else?"

Pegasus nudged him back underneath its wing, snorting softly.

Gingka sighed. "I know there's not a lot of time to work with… That just…" He paused and sighed, turning and reaching up to place both hands on Pegasus's back. The horse looked at him expectantly as he stood in the shadow cast by its wing. It nickered quietly, the sound rising in pitch towards the end as it asked him a question.

"Yeah… I'm scared." Gingka admitted softly, before jumping upwards and pulling himself onto the back of the winged horse, settling himself between its wings and patting its neck. "I guess I was before, so it doesn't change much, but I have no way of fighting back if what you mentioned before happens."

Pegasus snorted and began trotting off at a slow pace.

"I know…" Gingka sighed, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes as he felt the wind rushing through his hair, blowing it back away from his face. "Then… I suppose… This is… Well, not goodbye… It's only for a little while, after all."

Pegasus snorted and tossed its head, its mane blowing in sync with Gingka's hair.

"How will I even know where to find you again?" Gingka asked, sighing.

Pegasus fell silent at this, continuing to gallop on, faster and faster, the stars and galaxies around them speeding past them in a myriad of color and light. After several minutes of silence, the horse stopped galloping, coming to an abrupt stop and simply standing still, letting out a single snort between heavy breathing.

"I understand." Gingka sighed and slid off the horse's back, stepping quickly around in front of it and throwing his arms around its neck. He hugged the horse tightly, closing his eyes and letting the tears fall. Pegasus stamped one hoof, as if sternly telling him to man up.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm going." Gingka chuckled, sniffling and pulling himself away from the horse, swiping away his tears on his glove. "I'll see you soon." He said, putting on a brave face as he turned away, taking a deep breath. The area around him began to glow brighter and brighter as he began to return to consciousness.

"You will do fine, Gingka."

Gingka gasped slightly, recognizing the voice he heard. He turned around swiftly, eyes widening slightly at the sight he saw, the silhouette of his bey's spirit just before the lights became too blinding to see anything at all and he shot bolt upright in bed, returning to full consciousness and startling a doctor who had been shining a light in his eyes to determine whether or not he was responsive.

"Gingka?!" Zero shot up from a nearby chair that he had been sitting in.

"I"m fine, I'm fine." Gingka grunted, waving the doctor off and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

"Whoa, whoa, hold up there. You collapsed, you are NOT getting out of bed right now." Zero said, trying to keep Gingka from getting up.

"I collapsed because of the temporary shock of Pegasus's power being drained, I'm fine." Gingka said. "I know what's going on and Pegasus told me what we have to do to stop it, if we can."

Zero was so surprised at this that he forgot he was keeping GIngka from getting up.

"Pegasus what?" He blinked, suddenly realizing that Gingka was already out the door with the doctor following him.

"Gingka! Get back in bed!" Madoka and Benkei's voices said simultaneously from downstairs.

"I'm fine. Get the others together and have them pack for a journey. I need everyone ready to meet me in Koma Village as soon as possible. We don't have much time." Gingka said firmly,

"Why do we need to go to Koma Village?" Madoka called, chasing after the redhead as he went to gather his things.

"Because Pegasus told me to meet someone at a very special place. Someone who can help us but is going to need our help first." Gingka said. "Also, Zero…" he turned to the younger, who blinked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"I should warn you and the others of something." Gingka sighed. "Where are they?"

"I think they're still off with Maru trying to figure out what was happening to the beys." Zero said, looking nervous. "Is something wrong?"

Gingka sighed heavily. "Depends on your definition of wrong. Something is definitely going very wrong. But if we can fix it then it will be nothing to worry about?"

"And if we can't fix it?" Benkei asked.

Gingka closed his eyes. "Well… I'll put it this way… We'll all have to find another occupation capable of saving the world."

"Gingka… Are you saying…?" Madoka looked frightened at the prospect of what Gingka was implying.

"I mean exactly what you think I do." Gingka said in a grave tone, opening his eyes again and looking around at the other three. "I don't know precisely when. But every last bey on the planet is going to vanish from existence. If we want to get them back we have to do what Pegasus said. And we have to do it quickly."

Zero gasped sharply and put one hand protectively on his carrying case before pulling out Ifrit and looking at it nervously.

"No… But they can't! What's making them leave? What is the problem?" He asked, almost panicking and trying desperately not to, not in front of Gingka and the others.

"I don't have time to explain." Gingka said, turning away and shoving the rest of his things into his traveling bag before slowly grabbing the dull grey shell of Pegasus from the place where it was resting. He held it in his hand and looked at it, rubbing his thumb over the uneven surface that had once gleamed so brightly and even glowed in the heat of battle. He only hoped that he would be able to complete what Pegasus had told him to, so that he would be able to use it once again.

"I'll get the others." Zero gulped. "And… I'll tell them…"

"I'll call Tsubasa…" Madoka whispered nervously.

"I'll go make sure Bull Burger is taken care of because no way am I not coming." Benkei said.

"I'm going to leave right away and get there as soon as possible." Gingka said. "For once, Pegasus is not the one following my orders, that order has been switched, and I want to do what it said as soon as possible. Pegasus has never let me down and I'm not going to let it down any more than I'm going to stop, oh, I don't know…"

"Shoving down an ungodly amount of burgers in one sitting?" Zero quipped.

Gingka nearly fell over at this. "I do not eat an ungodly amount in one sitting!"

"Uh, yeah you do." Madoka called from the other room, where she was already busy dialing the WBBA's number.

Zero laughed. Gingka glared in amusement and threw a pillow at him, which he dodged.

"Are you going to the Bey Park or am I going to solve this whole problem before you even get out the door?" Gingka asked, shouldering his bag and choosing to keep Pegasus clenched in his hand.

"I'm going!" Zero said, darting off with an urgency in his step that fit the situation.

"When did the clouds get this dark?" Gingka asked as he stepped to the door of the B-Pit, one hand on it to open it and begin his journey to his home town.

"It happened while we were in Bey Park, because when we carried you out and to here the sky looked just like that." Madoka called as Benkei stepped past Gingka and hurried off towards his beloved burger shop.

Gingka frowned. "Then we'd better hurry faster than I thought we had to. I was out for longer than I thought or something." He stepped out the door and began to run off. Madoka watched him worriedly as he disappeared off down the street as fast as his legs could carry him. He had been out of sight for several minutes before she remembered that the doctor had not finished verifying whether he was alright or not. But by then it was too late, and the redhead was long gone.

Gingka sighed heavily as he ran, keeping his bey clenched in his hand even though he knew that he could not battle with it anymore. His thoughts drifted to the 'conversation' he had had with Pegasus. Really, he knew that anyone listening to them would have thought he was talking to himself. Pegasus had only ever made the sounds of, well, the horse that it was. However, he knew that the last few words he had heard before waking up were the voice of the same creature. Then how had it suddenly gained a human voice?

"You will do fine, Gingka."

That, Gingka knew, was distinctively what Pegasus had said. But that had been the first time Pegasus's voice had been something other than that of a horse. Sure, Gingka had always been able to understand what Pegasus meant when it snorted or whinnied or huffed, but this was different. And Gingka knew that it was not the first time he had heard Pegasus speak in a human voice. His mind flashed for a moment to the nightmare he had had the night before, the same which had temporarily clouded his vision earlier during the battle. He remembered the voice screaming his name when the sword came down. And now he knew that that voice was the voice of Pegasus itself.

Gingka sighed as he plunged into the forests surrounding one side of Metal Bey City. He had to admit that he was still rather scared about the prospect of facing everything he was about to face without having Pegasus to defend himself with, but he trusted the bey. Pegasus had said he would be fine. Considering that his bey knew more about the situation than he did, Gingka figured that it was probably correct.

"But should I even refer to you as an 'it' anymore now that I have heard what your voice sounds like with my own ears?" He wondered, looking down at the lifeless object in his hand with an amused smile. "Who would have known, huh? Strongest bey in the world… Puts a whole new meaning to a few phrases I suppose." Gingka chuckled.

"Well then… Let's do this thing so that everything can return back to normal… If that's even possible." Gingka sighed before gasping sharply and staring at his hand as the bey that he had been holding onto simply disintegrated and vanished.

"No… Pegasus…" Gingka whispered before clenching his now-empty hand into a fist and taking off as fast as his legs could carry him. He would complete his mission. He had to. If he did not, not one of the bladers on the entire planet would ever hold a Bey in their hand again.

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 **Welp. Now that I've made everyone even more mad at me for yet ANOTHER cliffhanger and the situation getting worse... Leave a review? ;) Galaxy out until next time!**


	4. Raiden

**I have passed 10,000 words with this chapter! Woohoo! 11,561, to be exact. (Note: If you look at the word count here on FF, it is off because the word count that it says on the story info INCLUDES my author's notes. Which don't count towards the NaNoWriMo total, of course.) Anyway, enjoy this chapter!**

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"So. We're all here. Now what?" Benkei asked as he and the others stepped into the small, rustic-looking town of Koma VIllage.

"It's busier than it was last time we were here." Madoka commented, looking around and seeing several villagers staring at them in surprise.

"Uhh… They don't like outsiders, do they?" Zero asked.

"Not exactly. The first time we came here, the only ones here, except for the guy who led us here, demanded that we leave because this is a 'sacred place.'" Benkei chuckled. "But then they figured out that we were indeed spirited bladers."

"And only that type of blader may enter. I trust you have kept up that standard in bringing this group here." A familiar, gruff voice said.

"Hokuto! Who's a good puppy?" Madoka immediately dropped to her knees and began petting the dog, which started to protest before making several contented grunting noises.

"Well, good thing you're here. Gingka already went on ahead but he said you'd be coming." another voice said as a taller man with light, purpleish-blue hair stepped up.

"Hyoma! Long time no see!" Benkei said.

Hyoma grinned and chuckled. "Enthusiastic as ever, I see. And these guys must be the teens to whom Gingka said the future belongs."

".. That sounded rather poetic." Madoka commented.

Hyoma chuckled. "Perhaps." He said. "Come on, I'll show you to Gingka's home and then we will head over to the Green Hades."

"What exactly is this 'Green Hades' anyway?" Zero asked as he and the others followed Hyoma off towards a larger house set slightly apart from the others up on a hillside.

"It's a stadium. Or, was. Now it's a broken stadium." Hyoma chuckled. "A landmark that holds many memories for Gingka and I. We had many battles in it, right up until the battle that broke it."

"I remember that." Madoka laughed.

"It was the first and only time that Gingka defeated me in that stadium." Hyoma chuckled. "But, more relevant to your mission here, it was the place from which beys were technically born, as was this village."

"Because 'long ago, a star fell from the sky.' Why do all of our problems seem to start with that phrase, anyway?" Benkei said.

"Seriously." Madoka chuckled, then sighed.

"To sum up, nearly every bey in existence, at least many of the older ones, were born from the meteor that crashed where the Green Hades stands today." Hyoma said. "Therefore, you can think of it as the first place where beys reached this earth. Before that, their power was unknown and they didn't exist."

"Wow. Cool!" Zero exclaimed, before looking down at the ground as the gravity of the situation they were in and what was at stake began to weigh down on him again.

"Your beys disappeared too, I take it." Hyoma said softly.

"Every bey in the world did, probably." Zero sighed. "According to what Gingka said."

"We'll get them back." Benkei said. "We have to."

"Well, now that we're here, hopefully Gingka will explain whatever Pegasus told him." Madoka said. "Because all of this is freaking me out."

"It's freaking all of us out, really." Hyoma said. "Come on then. I'll lead you guys there. Hopefully Gingka has at least partially figured out our next step."

"Okay, I'm here. Pegasus said to meet someone here, so if you're here, come out!" Gingka called, having arrived at the Green Hades stadium a couple of hours ago. But nothing had happened quite yet, and Gingka was beginning to grow concerned. He did not have any sort of description of the person he was supposed to meet here. Whoever it was, it was apparently someone who Pegasus trusted to be able to help with the situation that was at hand. Gingka sighed and sat down on the edge of the stadium, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes in thought.

"How long am I supposed to wait here, Pegasus…" he muttered under his breath, kicking at a loose rock and watching it as it landed in the stadium. Memories of battles long past entered his mind as he stared at the smooth green surface, now riddled with cracks that he himself had created.

"Those were good times, huh…" He chuckled under his breath. "The times where I thought things were already crazy, but that was nothing… I hadn't even defeated Ryuga yet then… And I still had…" Gingka cut himself off with a sigh, trailing his fingers across the smooth green surface. "Well… I wonder what happened to that Pegasus… The original… Or, in a way, not the original if I think about it… But the original to me and tournament records." He chuckled softly, looking towards the center of the stadium, where the cracks were all sprouting from; the location where Storm Pegasus had hit that day years ago when he had finally defeated Hyoma despite the slick surface of the stadium and Aries' capabilities.

"Fun times… When we had not so much to worry about." Gingka sighed. He suddenly paused as he saw something reflected in the stadium's shattered surface. Slowly, he looked up at the clouds, eyes wide. The dark clouds were being shoved aside, forced to give way to a cloud that was glowing a bright white color, opening up in a ring shape to reveal, much to Gingka's surprise, a similar starry scene to that which he always met Pegasus in in his dreams.

"Gingka! What is that?" Zero's voice echoed as he and the rest of the group, led by Hyoma, broke through the treeline.

"I don't know." Gingka called back. "But I get the idea it's what Pegasus wanted me to be here for, somehow."

"It is a nice change from the dark clouds for the moment." Hyoma commented, shielding his eyes slightly from the brightness of the light.

"Look out!" Madoka yelped as lightning began to flash around them, some of it hitting uncomfortably close.

Gingka just stared, a feeling in his chest welling up that he had not felt in a long time, so long, in fact, that he could not remember when exactly he had last felt it. He inhaled deeply, holding the breath for a few moments before letting it out slowly in an awed manner. The clouds swirled as more and more lightning flashed. Something could be seen approaching rapidly, enveloped in a brilliant glow that forced practically everyone to shield their eyes from it.

"Something's falling from it!" Hyoma said.

"No… Someone!" Benkei exclaimed, pointing.

Gingka narrowed his eyes and glanced around, taking a few steps back before getting a running start and leaping towards the falling figure, catching it in his arms before tumbling on the ground for a moment to break its fall, the two landing in the center of the Green Hades as the glowing white cloud vanished, allowing the dark ones from before to come back in and retake that portion of the sky.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Gingka asked, sitting up and carefully shifting the limp figure he had caught into his arms.

A slight shudder ran through the figure, which was definitely human in appearance, but Gingka could tell, somehow, that it was not human. He carefully brushed a few strands of the wild blue hair out of the face of what appeared to be a young man. At Gingka's touch, his eyes opened. Gingka nearly froze in shock, as any doubt about this figure not being human vanished at the sight of his eyes, which were filled with a faint blue glow that flickered, as if threatening to die out. After a few seconds, the glow faded enough that Gingka could see the whites of the young man's eyes, as well as brilliant blue irises.

"Well… You got older…" he whispered in a faint, weak voice before shuddering once more and falling limp with a faint groan, his head tilting back and eyes closing once more.

"Hey, hang in there!" Gingka exclaimed, slightly worried. His mind had no clue who this could be, or what he was doing falling out of some weird wormhole in the sky, but something deep down inside him told him that this was someone he knew, or had known, long ago. The question was, who exactly was this person he was holding in his arms?

"He needs help." Gingka called, standing and grunting slightly as he lifted the unconscious man.

"Who is he?" Zero wondered, having covered the distance from the forest's edge to the Green Hades quicker than anyone else.

"I don't know. But somehow, I feel like I do know." Gingka sighed, looking down with a worried, thoughtful frown at the pale face framed by wild blue hair, two tufts of which were sticking straight up at an odd angle.

"He looks like a warrior for sure." Hyoma commented, noting the armor covering the shoulders and upper chest of the young man, as well as the armored boots on his feet, dagger sheathed on his right thigh, and sheathed sword hanging from his left hip.

"He also seems to be cold or very weak. Or both." Madoka said. "We should get him back to your home, Gingka, and make sure that he's alright."

Gingka nodded, gathering up the long ends of a cape that trailed from the young man's shoulder armor and wrapping it around him slightly to keep him warmer as he kept shuddering, his breathing ragged, as if he had just been fighting a very difficult battle or had been running for a long time. Gingka figured it could have been both. He noted suddenly that the cape had quite an interesting pattern, one which he immediately began to study as he led the way back towards Koma Village. He became so caught up in figuring out what the cape's shape reminded him of that he nearly ran into several trees on the way back, causing more than a few startled exclamations of 'Look out, Gingka!' from his friends.

"Well, we made it back safely. I'll get another spare bed ready for him to rest in." Hyoma said once they reached the village and Gingka's home. "Gingka, it alright if someone else gets put in your room? I had left you alone in there but we're gonna need that extra bed now with this guy."

"That's fine. As a matter of fact, put him in that bed." Gingka called. "Saves time of figuring out who else to move from where they already are."

"Works for me." Hyoma said, going into Gingka's room and throwing back the blankets on one of the beds as Gingka followed behind him, laying the strange man on the bed carefully so as not to injure him further. He and Hyoma then removed the man's shoes, shoulder armor, and sword belt so that he would be more comfortable, hanging them up on a spare hook.

"Wings…" Gingka muttered under his breath, suddenly realizing what the cape resembled.

"Huh?" Hyoma looked at him as he laid a blanket over the unconscious figure.

"The cape he was wearing. Doesn't it look like wings?" Gingka asked, staring at the dark blue fabric with a thoughtful frown.

"Huh. It does now that you mention it." Hyoma said. "I'll go get my mother to check over this guy and make sure he's uninjured."

Gingka nodded. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on him. Whoever he is, I think Pegasus wanted me to meet him. He may be the key to finding out how to fix what is happening to our beys."

"Well I guess there's only one way to find out." Hyoma said, leaving to get his mother, who was the village doctor.

Gingka nodded as he sat down on his own bed before taking off his shoes and setting them aside, pulling his feet up onto the bed and sitting crosslegged, leaning against the wall and staring thoughtfully at the unconscious figure who was laying across the room.

"Who are you… I know you… And from what you said, you know me… But from where…" Gingka muttered under his breath, eyes narrowed as he wracked his brain trying to figure out who this was.

Gingka knew very little about who this person, no, being, was. He knew that he was not human. He knew that he knew him from somewhere, likely from a long time ago, considering that the only words the stranger had spoken were 'well, you got older.' Gingka wondered if this person were one of the figures from his nightmare. He certainly seemed to be that sort of being. But Gingka had not been able to make out any faces of the figures there. They had all been silhouetted and almost indistinguishable from one another. So there was no way he could have recognized this one had he seen him in his nightmares.

"You're not human… Yet Pegasus knows you… And you can help with what is happening to our beys… And I get the idea that the nightmare I had is related to you… That's where you're from, that burning city is where you lived… And probably you came here to escape from that, if it's real." Gingka muttered aloud, mostly to himself.

"I'm back. Here's the guy, mom." Hyoma said as he entered with an older woman who was carrying some medical supplies in a bag slung over her shoulder.

"Well he's quite young. And he does not look like he just fell from a great height like you said he did. Who is he, anyway?" The woman asked.

"We don't know." Hyoma said.

"He's not human." Gingka spoke up, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin atop the backs of his hands, intertwining his fingers.

Hyoma and his mother looked at Gingka in confusion.

"But he looks perfectly human." Hyoma said.

"But he fell from a portal that leads to who-knows-where, likely the same place that the star fragment that caused the Green Hades came from. And while I can't tell you who he is, he's familiar to me. And something deep down inside me is telling me that he is not human." Gingka said. "His eyes were glowing when he first opened them, just before he told me I had grown older and fainted. Whoever he is it's someone I know. Or someone who knows me. I suspect he's older than me."

"My guess is that he's around nineteen, but he could be your age." Hyoma's mother said.

"That's how old he looks, yes. But, Mrs. Isha, he clearly knew me when I was younger. And remembered me. But I don't remember him at all." Gingka said. "I've never seen him before in my life but something deep inside me is telling me that I know him and I just can't place his face anywhere."

"Well, he's nobody I have ever seen before." Isha said, moving to check the vital signs of the unconscious young man before her. "So he is not from Koma Village. You say he fell from a portal in the sky and is not human though?"

Gingka nodded. "I know it sounds crazy and you'll probably be checking me over for a fever in a moment but Hyoma and the others saw him fall too."

"Well whoever he is and whether you're crazy or not, he seems uninjured to me but very weak. As if he was injured before and has been recovering for a long time, resting without much movement so that, after a sudden amount of stress, he has relapsed into being very weak. If he indeed is not human, then I can't say what will happen, but, since he is very humanlike and is breathing and has a pulse as if he were human, although the touch of him definitely feels strange, I would dare say that with some simple rest he will come around quite soon."

"In other words you can feel the same strange, for lack of a better word, aura, that he is giving off, something that I can't describe but it's right under his skin and proves that he's different than we are." Gingka said.

"I believe he will wake up soon if his body behaves like that of a human. But I do not think you are crazy for believing him to not be human." Isha said. "We will keep an eye on him and if his condition starts to decline I will attempt something. But we do not know what we are dealing with, and he seems fine, so I shall leave him alone for now."

Gingka nodded, climbing off his bed and stepping across the room to stand next to the bedside of the strange being that was laying there. He slowly put one hand on the messy blue hair, trying to feel again the strange sensation that pulsed just beneath the surface of this being's outer appearance. Isha and Hyoma watched the redhead, curious as to what he was doing.

"I still can't place it… But I know this feeling… I haven't felt it in a long time and I've never met him but I know him… It's frustrating not being able to figure this out when the answer probably has a huge impact on how to get back the beys of the entire world." Gingka sighed after a while, beginning to remove his hand, only to pause as a slight moan escaped the lips of the unconscious figure in front of him.

"He's waking up." Isha said.

Gingka nodded, waiting. For a few more seconds, nothing happened. All at once, the glowing blue eyes flew open once more and their owner shot up in bed in a panic.

"Whoa, whoa! Calm down there. Everything's fine, you're fine." Gingka said hurriedly. Hyoma and his mother looked a bit unnerved by the fierce glow in the eyes of the being that Gingka was now trying to calm.

"Right… I escaped…" He said softly, yet his voice throbbed with an echo of a long forgotten power.

"Yeah… I guess." Gingka said. "Although I'm not sure what you escaped from. Who… Are you, anyway?"

A heavy sigh escaped the young man's lips as he tilted his head back and up slightly to look at Gingka. "I shouldn't be surprised that you don't know who I am. It has been… I don't know how long here on your world, actually, but clearly quite a while with how much you have grown."

"You know me, obviously. But I don't know how." Gingka said, calmly.

"My name is Raiden." He said, as if that explained things.

"... That doesn't sound familiar as someone I know…" Gingka said slowly.

Raiden frowned slightly, furrowing his eyebrows as if confused as to why the information he had just given had not caused Gingka to recognize him. After a few moments, he blinked, twice, then gave a sheepish grin.

"Right… That's not the name you know me by…" He said slowly, chuckling under his breath.

"Then… What is?" Gingka asked.

"You might not believe me." Raiden said, glancing around the room at the others in a slightly nervous manner.

"I've seen a lot of things today that I wouldn't have believed. Try me." Gingka said.

Raiden looked him directly in the eye once more. "You knew me as Storm Pegasus."

* * *

 **Dun dun duuuuun. Plot twists, yay! I haven't used Raiden in a long time and he's an underdeveloped character, but we shall see how this plays out. I am excited for it. -And I even know approximately where this is going lol- Anyway, until next time, Galaxy out!**


	5. Resolution

A sort of shocked silence fell over the room after Raiden had spoken. Gingka was staring at the bluenette in shock, as the pieces fell into place in his mind. Now he knew why Raiden had seemed so familiar to him. The bluenette was his old partner, the very one that had shattered the Green Hades in the first place. Hyoma and Isha just looked rather confused about the whole situation.

"You're… that Pegasus?" Gingka breathed.

Raiden gave a sheepish, apologetic grin. "Yeah… Kinda am… Sorry for just disappearing, by the way. That battle wounded me too much for me to survive without fully returning to my true homeland."

Gingka leaned forwards and hugged Raiden, who blinked in surprise before chuckling softly and hugging him back, patting his back.

"So… you're gonna have lots of explaining to do." Gingka said after several moments, chuckling as he pulled away. "If you're up for it, that is."

Raiden nodded. "Yeah, I know. We've got a lot of planning to do if we're gonna fix what's happened. I take it you know a little bit about it."

"Your successor told me." Gingka said. "At least part of it."

Raiden nodded. "She told me to escape and come here fully. I can't have a bey form right now, but I can still fight." He said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing with a little help from Gingka. "To an extent, at least."

Gingka raised an eyebrow as he steadied Raiden. "Considering how obviously weak you are right now, I doubt that." He said, indicating how much the bluenette's legs were shaking as he stood there.

"Well… Okay yeah I can't do much, admittedly. This is mostly fatigue at the moment though." Raiden said.

"Then you should rest more." Hyoma said.

Raiden shrugged. "We should at least get partially started on something that will help us defeat the problem at hand. You brought more bladers, right? I think it's about time we explained the situation to them. Also… Got any weapons laying around?"

"Maybe. Why do you ask?" Gingka asked.

Raiden allowed a slow smile to creep across his face. "Well. If we're going to take a group of bladers to the world of the beys, then those bladers will need to know how to fight, especially considering the situation at hand." He said, using the bed to support himself partially as he walked to the hook Gingka had hung his sword belt and sword on.

"So… You're planning on teaching us how to fight the way you do." Gingka said. "So that, when we go to the place where you're actually from, we can actually defend ourselves at least to a certain extent."

Raiden nodded as he slipped the sword belt over his head and slid everything into place before putting his armor back on, his glowing eyes reflecting off of the metal surfaces. "Pretty much. And we'd better start right away."

"Even though you're weakened?" Gingka raised an eyebrow.

"You're one to talk considering that you battled when you had a cold and hid it." Raiden said smugly.

"... Once!" Gingka protested, looking embarrassed. "And that was a long time ago…"

"My point stands. Let's get started." Raiden said, turning with a swirl of his cape and walking out the door in a rather unsteady manner. "I don't need to use much strength against a group who doesn't know what they're doing anyway, I'd expect."

Gingka gained a tick mark. "Hey! I wouldn't underestimate us, and you of all people should know that!" He exclaimed, chasing after the bluenette.

Hyoma and his mother glanced at each other with amused smiles on their faces before following the two out and into the living room, where the others were gathered.

"... Why are his eyes glowing?!" Benkei promptly freaked out, while the others just stared in surprise at Raiden, who was looking over them with a thoughtful frown.

"Because he's not human." Gingka said, coming up behind Raiden. "Basically he's gonna train us to fight in a different way than what we're used to. He's a bey. Not just any bey either. Apparently he's Storm Pegasus."

"That name sounds strange to actually hear." Raiden muttered, scratching the back of his head awkwardly at the shocked and confused stares he was getting. "My name's actually Raiden."

"Well, uh.. Nice to meet you?" Benkei said awkwardly.

"When do we start this training?" Zero asked, looking rather excited about the prospect.

"As soon as we possibly can." Raiden said. "We need to get there and defeat Mao as soon as possible."

"Who?" The group chorused.

Raiden paused before grinning sheepishly. "Riiiight… Earth… You don't know our real names… And I don't know all of the Earth names for us…"

"Nemesis." Gingka spoke up. "You're referring to Nemesis."

"... Who?!" the other bladers looked panicked.

"What he said. Unfortunately." Raiden sighed. "He broke free of the confinement that he was put in after he was defeated here, and he caught us so off guard that before any of the ones you call the Legendary Beys had time to realize what was going on and stop him, he had knocked down half of them and locked them up. Our forms here in your world disappeared because our government issued an emergency recall of them all so that we all had our full power to fight. But, considering what had happened, my sister decided it would be better to send me here."

"Your sister?" Hyoma raised an eyebrow.

"Samurai Pegasus. My current bey." Gingka said, raising an eyebrow at Raiden for confirmation.

"Yeah. Her." Raiden said. "Anyway-" He started to continue, but was cut off by Zero.

"Wait, wait, wait. So, what you're telling me is that the strongest bey in the world, Samurai Pegasus, the bey Gingka used to win countless tournaments after you disappeared… Is a GIRL?!" The Ifrit blader gaped at Gingka, who shrugged.

"Hey, I only found this out earlier this morning a few minutes before I left to come here." The redhead said defensively, although he looked slightly embarrassed.

Raiden let out a very horse-like snort. "You two really are alike. Anyway, as I was saying, my sister figured that we would need your guys's help if we were gonna defeat Ma- I mean, Nemesis. So, she and the few others who were still free of Nemesis' grasp helped me escape our world entirely."

"And now we're all here. What do we do then?" Zero asked.

"We learn to fight." Gingka said. "At least I think that's the plan."

Raiden nodded, resting a hand on his sword hilt. "Yeah. We have limited time. I'm going to teach you as much as I can. This will be dangerous though."

"Yeah but if we don't then who will?" Zero pointed out.

"What if we fail?" Madoka asked. "I get the idea there won't be a retreat from this one."

"Probably not." Gingka said. "But it was the same last time we faced a threat like this. The last two times, actually. We could die if we attempt this. But I think that more people will die for sure if we don't try."

Zero and his friends gulped slightly and glanced at each other. They had not thought that any fight they would ever be in would mean death. Yet, now that Gingka mentioned it, it made sense to them that this could end in death for all of them.

"That's crazy!" Ren exclaimed at last.

"I know. Welcome to my world." Gingka sighed. "Look. I won't make any of you do this. I understand if you don't want to go. It will be dangerous. It'll be more dangerous than anything you have ever done and I honestly can't guarantee that any of us will make it out alive. But I'm going to try, with or without your help. Because I promised Pegasus."

"So did I." Raiden said, his glowing eyes narrowing slightly as he focused on his sword hilt, his fingers curling and uncurling around the weapon.

A silence fell over the room after Gingka and Raiden had finished speaking. Everyone was looking down at the ground or up at the ceiling, trying to decide what they were going to do. A few hands trembled as they clenched, white-knuckled grips present around the room as everyone struggled to stay calm.

Gingka sighed. "We'd best get started, Raiden." He said, turning towards the door in resignation. Nobody was going to join him, it seemed. He understood. The threat of potential and undoubtedly horrible death scared him too. But he figured it would happen either way, and he would rather go down fighting than go down laying around and waiting for it to happen. If that meant he had to stand alone, so be it.

"I'm going too." Zero said suddenly, jumping to his feet. "I don't like the idea of standing around just waiting for something to happen. I want to fight for a chance. Even if it is a small one."

"Anyone else then?" Raiden asked, keeping one hand on the wall to steady himself as he moved ahead of Gingka to the front door.

"I'm going too. If Zero's in, then so am I. Can't let him get all the glory, after all." Shinobu said, standing.

Zero grinned at this. "You're on! First one to take down Nemesis wins!"

"Technically Gingka already won then." Eight pointed out. "By a good seven years."

"... Well then the second one to take down Nemesis wins!" Zero exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.

Gingka chuckled and shook his head in amusement at the enthusiasm of the younger bladers, his heart lightening at their enthusiasm. "Calm down now, there's plenty of glory to be won here I'm sure. Just nobody do anything reckless."

"You're one to talk." Benkei, Madoka, and Raiden said all at once.

Gingka sweatdropped. "I'm not that bad!" He exclaimed.

"Heading off to try to defeat Ryuga on your own that last night of Battle Bladers." Madoka said.

"Eating so many burgers that you got sick that one time right after defeating Nemesis." Benkei added.

"Climbing the Snowy Mountain without what you humans term 'proper gear,' countless battles where somehow we came out on top after you told me to do something incredibly risky, smashing the landing point for us that you call the Green Hades… Need I go on?" Raiden asked.

Gingka just glared at his former bey. "And you can just shut up."

Raiden laughed at this, grinning mischievously. "As if you could make me." He challenged.

Gingka grumbled under his breath as the others laughed or simply smiled in amusement.

"Well, I will not be outdone by these two." Kite declared, standing and pushing his glasses up on his nose further, "If anyone is going to defeat Nemesis first or second, it's gonna be me, the great Kite Unabara."

"Yeah! And I'll help my big bro do it because he's better than any of you!" Eight exclaimed, also standing and clenching his fists at his sides, although he was shaking. Kite put a hand on his brother's head, looking down at him and smiling.

"Well now I'm all pumped up!" Ren exclaimed. "Count me in too!"

"I'll stay behind and try to protect the village like I always have. Gingka, I'll also tell your dad about what's going on. We'll see if he believes me." Hyoma said.

Gingka nodded, chuckling. "I barely believe it myself but here we are."

"You coming, Manager?" Zero asked, looking to Benkei.

"Ahh, I'm not gonna be left outta this either! Count me in! Bu-bu-bull!" Benkei exclaimed. "Plus, I miss Bull."

"We all miss our beys really. It's about time we gave something back to them for all the help they've given us. Especially now that we know they have lives of their own." Zero said.

"Then why are you still standing around talking? You've got training to do." Madoka pointed out, laughing at all of the enthusiasm.

"... Right. Let's go!" Gingka exclaimed, turning and rushing out the door with the others following close behind, save for Raiden, who chuckled under his breath and followed more slowly.

"What first then?" Gingka asked, turning to Raiden as soon as they were all assembled outside.

"I'm going to have to mentally rule out flying as any sort of option because that was where I started when I was trained, but, I have the ability to fly in the first place and you guys don't."

"Pretty much. So we're stuck on the ground probably." Gingka said. "But we can do things from there. We're mostly trying to rescue and gather together the forces that can defeat Nemesis anyway, aren't we?"

Raiden nodded. "And I can't train you all to fly anyway since I haven't been able to fly since, well, the last time you saw me really."

Gingka raised an eyebrow. "Really…?"

Raiden nodded sheepishly and sighed sadly, glancing back behind him. "Yeah… And right now I still lack the energy to even transform into my beast form. So, no flying for me."

"Is it possible for you to get it back?" Gingka asked, looking quite sad at the new information.

"Who knows?" Raiden sighed. "It's been several years. Much of that was spent unconscious while I healed from that battle. But I don't regret it. So don't you dare regret it either. What we did that day was amazing."

Gingka let out a soft chuckle and nodded. "Yeah. It was. Anyway, on to training."

"Well if you all have some sort of sword… Or at the very least, a large stick that won't break..?" Raiden said. "Something like that?"

"Weapon hunting then. Let's go! Pair off and meet back here as soon as you both find something you can use that won't break!" Gingka called.

"Works for me." Raiden said, plopping down crosslegged on the ground, his cape floating down more slowly behind him.

"You feeling alright?" Gingka asked, watching the humanoid.

Raiden waved him off. "You go find a stick. I just need to sit down for a bit. I'll be fine."

"You'd better be." Gingka said before following the overexcited group of younger bladers into the forest.

Raiden sighed and nodded. "I will be." He muttered, looking up at the darkened sky with his calm, glowing blue eyes. After staring for a few seconds, he closed his eyes, focusing mentally on something that he had not tried for a long time. He ignored the villagers who paused what they were doing to stare at him, having seen Gingka carry him inside and now, having seen the glow of his eyes lighting up the area around him.

Raiden ignored the stares, although he knew that there were many currently being directed at him. He simply sat there, breathing deeply and thinking about what he had just told Gingka. He pretended otherwise, but the long months, no, years of recovery had taken their toll on him mentally. He was used to being able to fly free, and, although he had become accustomed to having to walk, he dearly missed the times when he could soar above the clouds, dispersing the dark ones with a simple flare of his own raw power. Falling was definitely a new sensation to him, and a very unnerving one. Winged horses were not supposed to fall. They were supposed to soar. Riding on the back of another was simply unheard of and unnatural.

At least he still had some power, Raiden mused. He could still fight- well, mostly. He doubted he would stand a chance against any of the opponents he had previously defeated in his current state. But that was precisely why he was here on Earth, was it not? To regain that strength if he could while gathering new allies whom Mao would not be able to detect so easily.

A deep chuckle escaped Raiden's throat, filled with an undertone laced with the power that lay dormant inside his body. Several of the nearer villagers took a step back in surprise at the sound, unsure what to think of the otherworldly-sounding voice. They took another step back at the sight of a faint, glowing, almost ghostly shape that was beginning to form around the seated humanoid. Raiden opened his eyes, which were glowing brighter now. He was fully aware that the shape of a winged horse had formed in glowing lines around him, ghostly wings spreading behind his back as he stood. Half of the village became bathed in blue light as the echo of a whinny not heard by anyone for a long time sounded, not precisely in anyone's ears, but rather in their minds.

"Well. You do still have some strength, huh?" Gingka chuckled softly as he watched from nearby, having already found something he could use to fight.

"What's he doing?" Zero and the others asked as they ran up, each carrying several large, sturdy sticks.

"I'm not sure. But it's quite beautiful to watch. And shows that he still possesses quite a bit of power." Gingka said softly.

"I can hear you, by the way." Raiden chuckled, turning to them as the glowing form around him faded to nothingness once more. "That is the furthest I can go towards achieving my old full power levels right now."

"Well, you have a good start from what I can tell." Gingka said. "We've got weapons. I actually did manage to find some swords."

"We'll start with the sticks for now." Raiden said. "Safer to use at first until you know a bit more."

"Got it." Gingka said.

"Well then… Everyone grab a stick," Raiden said, pausing for a moment to grasp the hilt of his own sword and unsheathing it, twirling it around in the air twice before pointing the blade at Gingka in a challenging manner, "And let's begin training."


	6. Training

"Again!" Raiden's voice echoed through the village, as the loud sounds of sticks hitting each other vibrated through the air.

"How long have we been doing this..?" Zero panted.

"Hours, probably." Gingka replied, planting his feet wider apart in an attempt to keep his balance against Benkei, who was letting out war cry after war cry and attacking recklessly.

"I'd tell him to give you a break but really this is better practice than if he did." Raiden called, chuckling as he balanced his own sword in his hand, as if making sure its weight hadn't changed within the last five minutes since he had last done so.

"No… kidding!" Gingka yelped as he ducked under one of Benkei's crazed swings and rolled to the side, losing his stick in the process.

"Now you're in trouble." Raiden called casually, sheathing his sword and crossing his arms.

Gingka yelped and rolled to the other side, grabbing his stick and barely managing to block Benkei's next assault.

"Much better." Raiden called, chuckling under his breath.

"We could use some more light. I think the sun is setting, it's getting darker." Ren called.

"We're out of firewood." Gingka said as he finally managed to disarm Benkei.

"Well that can easily be remedied. I think I have enough strength recovered to knock down a tree." Raiden said. "Just show me what tree to knock down."

Gingka looked around, panting and stretching his arms out. "I think that old dead-ish one over there needs to be knocked down." He said, pointing with his stick. "It is marked for it."

"On it." Raiden said, taking off at a strong sprint towards the tree that Gingka had indicated.

"How's he gonna cut it down without, like, an axe?" Zero asked as he was nearly stabbed in the gut by Shinobu, managing to parry the stroke and dodge it.

"Probably gonna use his sword or something." Gingka said, although he was also rather curious about what Raiden was doing.

"... Guys… He's gonna-" Shinobu all too late realized precisely what Raiden planned on doing, as the humanoid abruptly ducked down just before reaching the tree and bashed his head into it full force.

Gingka paused, staring in utter shock at what he had just seen. The others standing behind him animefell promptly as Raiden's head came into contact with the tree, which shook from the force with which he had slammed into it but did not fall. Raiden staggered backwards, reeling from the self-inflicted blow. After a few steps, he simply collapsed to the ground.

"Raiden!" Gingka exclaimed, worried as he dropped his fighting stick and ran to the bluenette's side.

"I'm… Okay…" Raiden grunted as Gingka reached him. "Just gotta let everything stop spinning and whirling around…"

"Why did you try doing it that way?" Gingka asked.

"Well… When a blader orders us to knock down a tree in our bey forms that IS the motion that we use… But we don't actually directly feel what we're hitting necessarily… Ow…." Raiden groaned, trying to sit up.

"Just lie still for a minute." Gingka sighed. "I'll get the tree cut down."

"I'm fine." Raiden waved him off in a dismissive manner, putting one hand to his head and grimacing as he sat up despite what Gingka had ordered.

Gingka sighed. "You're gonna have to be more careful about things." He chuckled.

Raiden shrugged. "Technically I'm invincible here. Sorta." He said.

"What do you mean, 'sorta'?" Gingka asked.

"Well, it has been discovered in the past that our species can only be killed by another of our own. So if you tried to stab me through the chest, whatever weapon you were using would just glance off. That's also why you cannot defeat Nemesis." Raiden said as Gingka helped him up and steadied him.

"Hence why our plan is not to go after Nemesis, but to free and re-organize the beys who can." Gingka said.

"Exactly." Raiden grunted as he swayed, struggling to keep his balance.

"You should just sit down for a minute until your head stops spinning." Gingka said, slipping one arm under Raiden's shoulders and steadying him further.

"I'll be fine in a minute…" Raiden muttered, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

Gingka sighed in exasperation. "You're more stubborn than I am."

"For the record, just about every one of your ancestors who commanded me all those years was about as stubborn, and so were you, so I really don't know why you're complaining." Raiden huffed, opening his eyes again and looking smugly up at Gingka, who sweatdropped and glared at him.

"I could just let go of you and let you fall over." Gingka said.

Raiden shrugged. "You could. But I wouldn't fall over."

Gingka immediately released his grip on Raiden's shoulders and watched with a slightly smug look on his face as the bluenette promptly fell to the ground with a startled yelp.

"You were saying?" Gingka chuckled under his breath, crossing his arms and looking rather smug.

"... I thought I had caught balance." Raiden admitted, clearly annoyed at this development of events.

"You're an attack type. Balance isn't your strong point once it's been knocked off and you lose stamina." Gingka pointed out.

"So?!" Raiden protested, holding out a hand. "Now help me up."

Gingka chuckled and did so, once again steadying his old friend. "Let's get you to somewhere where you can lie down until the dizziness wears off. Anything I should know about beys hitting their heads hard?"

"Give me about another minute and I should be fine." Raiden said. "It should wear off quickly."

"If you say so." Gingka said, his tone betraying the fact that he did not quite believe Raiden for his word at the moment.

Raiden closed his eyes and took deep breaths, a faint glow surrounding him as he focused on warding off the dizziness. After a few more minutes, he opened his eyes and stepped away from Gingka's support, his dizziness a thing of the past.

"Told you. Let's try another method of cutting that tree down." He said, grasping his sword and pulling it from its sheath before again charging the tree.

Gingka raised an eyebrow, simultaneously impressed with how quickly Raiden had recovered from bashing his head into the tree and interested to see what the humanoid had planned this time around. Raiden glowed as he charged at the tree once more, raising his sword. In one clean swipe, the tree practically exploded at its base, falling over with a perfectly clean cut across its trunk, just above the ground.

"Whoaaa!" The awed exclamation came from the younger bladers standing behind Gingka, Raiden's glowing body making them able to clearly see what he had done.

Gingka chuckled. "Well. That was certainly more effective than using your head as a battering ram." He complimented as he walked up to Raiden, who was grinning sheepishly and panting slightly from the amount of power he had just exerted.

"I had to redeem a bit of my former glory somehow." Raiden chuckled softly.

Gingka nodded. "Should I grab the axe to cut up some of the rest of this so we can get it on a fire, or do you have the power to finish it off?"

"How do you want it cut?" Raiden asked, chuckling and scratching the back of his head with his left hand.

Gingka stepped over to the tree and looked thoughtful. "Well… I guess…" He trailed off, thinking.

"You can tell those two know each other very well." Shinobu commented. "They just met and they're acting like they're brothers or best friends or something."

"In a way, they are." Benkei said. "Raiden did say that he was Storm Pegasus, which was the bey Gingka used to win the original Battle Bladers. So they do know each other. All we really see is them meeting for what seems to be the first time, but really it's more like they're two friends who just met for the first time in several years and they've simply picked up right where they left off."

"That does make sense." Ren said, scratching her cheek.

"When you put it that way it's not surprising." Zero said. "After all, the bond between a blader and a bey, especially a blader like Gingka, is pretty close."

"And he was pretty devastated after Storm Pegasus disappeared." Benkei said. "It was several months before he got his next bey, and during that time he was often off by himself brooding. Even when he was with us and acting happy, we could tell that he wasn't. And he never joined us at the stadium during that time, either. Of course, once he got Galaxy Pegasus, that changed and he was his old self again but you could still see in his eyes sometimes that he missed his first Pegasus."

"Huh." Zero said, looking back towards Gingka, who was in the process of leaping back as Raiden attacked the fallen tree, slicing it into several equal pieces that were just the right size for firewood.

"Well that was a whole ton faster and easier than using an axe." Gingka laughed.

Raiden chuckled as he sheathed his sword. "That was sorta the point. I can't carry it all inside with my sword though."

"Nah, we got this." Gingka said. "Everyone come grab an armful!" He called. "We gotta take this inside and pile it up next to the fireplace!"

"Got it!" Benkei and the others said, setting their fighting sticks up on the porch and jogging over.

"My arms are tired already though." Zero laughed as he held out his arms for Gingka to pile a few logs onto them.

"All the more training then." Gingka laughed. "Plus, with all the training Benkei has you do, you can handle it."

Zero grinned sheepishly. "Probably." He said as he carried the logs inside while Gingka piled some onto Shinobu's arms.

"You doing alright?" Gingka asked Raiden, noting that the humanoid was now leaning more on his sword rather than holding it.

"Bit tired." Raiden admitted. "My low power levels are really starting to get annoying."

Gingka put a hand on Raiden's shoulder sympathetically. "You'll get it back."

"It's been nine years in your time, nearly, and I still can't even fly." Raiden said in a rather subdued voice, looking down and away from his former master. "My wings are so damaged that I'm almost ashamed to bring them out. Plus, they still ache from that battle."

"Perhaps they can be fixed." Gingka said. "Should we find out?"

Raiden sighed and shrugged. "I've just about given up on flight…" He admitted softly.

"Don't give up." Gingka said. "Once you start giving up on things then you might give up on things you absolutely should not give up on. Such as the matter at hand. Come on. Let's see what can be done about your wings."

Raiden looked at him with a raised eyebrow, then smiled and chuckled, shaking his head. "I forgot how much of an optimist you were." He said. "I guess we may as well."

"We also need to get the rest of this firewood inside and help get a fire started." Gingka said. "Then, we'll see if perhaps Hyoma's mom can do anything about the damage to your wings. She knows quite a bit of medical stuff."

Raiden shrugged. "Worth the try, I guess." He said, helping Gingka pick up the rest of the wood before heading inside, where Zero and the others had already made a rather neat pile of wood up against a wall.

"Let's get this started then. Been getting cold in here anyway." Hyoma said, as he and Madoka began putting some logs into the fireplace and starting a fire.

"Is your mom still here?" Gingka asked.

"Yeah. She's been straightening some things up in the kitchen and preparing for dinner." Hyoma said. "Why?"

"Think she could apply her medical skills to Raiden's wings?" Gingka asked.

"... But he doesn't have wings?" Hyoma said confusedly.

"Technically I'm just keeping them hidden at the moment since I'm not using them. But if I were to partially transform into my beast form, they would appear." Raiden explained. "They do sorta still hurt though from the injuries, so I haven't been using them at all."

"Oh. Well you can ask her." Hyoma said. "She's gotta know at least something."

"I'll get her." Madoka said. "I need to go start cooking a bit anyway. I'll just take over whatever she's doing."

Hyoma nodded.

"Thanks, Madoka." Gingka said, eyeing Raiden with a slight undertone of worry in his eyes. He could tell that the humanoid was a lot more upset and hurt by the loss of his flying abilities than he was letting on. The bond between the two had been severed when Raiden had disappeared right after Battle Bladers, sure, but Gingka was discovering that there was still a residual connection that he could feel between them. Perhaps it was just his usual senses that could detect when a bey, even one not his own, was crying inside.

"Alright, where are these wings you want me to look over?" Isha asked as she came into the room.

"Raiden?" Gingka asked, turning to the bey, who nodded and closed his eyes.

Everyone around the room watched the humanoid as he lowered his head slightly, focusing what power he had into what he needed to do. The cape he was wearing flowed slightly, floating up slowly and lengthening, growing thicker and folding itself in half neatly as it transformed into what had clearly once been a quite beautiful pair of wings. Now, however, the feathers were sticking out in seemingly random directions, patches of them thinner than they should be, compared to the rest of the wing. Several gaps in the flight feathers betrayed clearly that flight was currently impossible, and the rather tattered bandages still hanging from a few areas of the wings further proved this fact.

Gingka whistled softly at the state of Raiden's wings.

"No wonder you kept them hidden." He commented, slightly surprised at how terrible of a state Raiden's wings were in.

"Yeah." Raiden said softly, sighing and slowly moving the large limbs that had sprouted from his back.

"Well, let's have a look then." Isha said. "Sit down and I'll see what I can do."

Raiden nodded and slowly did so, sitting crosslegged on the ground.

"Let me know if any of this hurts and I will be more gentle." Isha said, carefully grabbing the top of one wing and slowly pulling it out to its fullest extent, something she had to stretch both arms out to either side of her to fully do.

"Quite the impressive wingspan there." Zero whistled. "How big is that, anyway?"

"I think it's a bit over three meters per wing." Gingka said. "At a rough estimate."

"Grows larger when I shift to full beast form too." Raiden said.

"Why is that?" Eight asked.

"Well it does take a much larger wingspan to lift a horse into the air than to lift a person. Larger amount of weight." Isha said.

"Precisely." Raiden muttered, wincing slightly as Isha ran her hand along the top of his wing, feeling underneath the feathers for anything that was out-of-the-ordinary.

"Oh there's definitely something here." She said, bending down to get a closer look at the joint her hands were currently working with. "It feels completely off."

"I sorta noticed that." Raiden grumbled.

"Well I can fix this but I don't know how your feathers growing back will work." She said.

"I'm surprised they didn't already, in a way." Gingka said. "Assuming that they were lost in that battle."

"Which they were." Raiden said. "It's complicated."

"Well, either way, feathers to my knowledge will grow back, and this joint.." Isha paused for a moment before abruptly yanking at the wing and causing a loud popping sound to emanate from the joint. Raiden yelped in pain and jerked the wing away from her reflexively, the span of it knocking over Eight, Maru, and Kite all in one fell swoop. A gust of wind picked up in the room in the same instant and knocked over anything else that was within a broader range of Raiden's wing, as well as whipping everyone's hair in their faces.

"Whoa!" Gingka yelped in surprise.

Raiden paused for an instant, his wing nearly wrapping around him before he slowly unfurled it and positioned it behind him once more, glancing around and looking quite sheepish as he saw the rather devastating effects his automatic reflexes had caused.

"Uhh… Sorry… You guys alright…?" He asked.

"Were you trying to kill us or something?! That hurt!" Kite exclaimed, holding Eight protectively as if to shield him from the humanoid who was looking quite embarrassed at what he had done.

"I think your wings are stronger than you think." Gingka laughed, beginning to put things back in place.

"It was not that strong a second ago. I swear." Raiden said. "I could barely lift it… But now…" He looked behind him and stretched the wing that Isha had just popped back into place. "I can feel the strength back in it, somehow." He winced slightly and reached back over his shoulder to feel at the joint where the wing connected to his back. "But now it feels sore…"

"Well it was out of place for a long time and the muscles were unable to function properly after being in that position for so long." Isha said. "You should have had someone look at it sooner. Now let me check the other one."

Raiden, as quickly as strained muscles would allow, pulled his other wing away from her, almost hugging it in a protective manner. "Last time it hurt." He protested. "You gotta at least warn me this time before you do anything like that."

Isha crossed her arms and looked sternly at the humanoid. "Now you just shut up and let me do my job here, young man, and if another joint needs relocating I ain't gonna tell ya because then you'll tense up and it'll just be harder to pop back into place. Now gimme that wing so I can look at it or, so help me, I am going to tie you down to a chair and make you hold still while I fix it up, ya hear me?"

Gingka and Hyoma both burst out laughing at the look on Raiden's face once Isha had finished her miniature rant. The humanoid's face seemed to be frozen in a mixture of shock at being scolded as if he were a child, and fear at the unbridled fury of the human woman who had dared scold him in the first place.

"Lots of power, the ability to fly, not even from this planet, and you just got scolded as if you were a two-year-old kid." Gingka teased.

Raiden glared at him as he surrendered his other wing to Isha, who began examining it.

"Shut up." The humanoid grumbled, looking quite embarrassed at this.

Gingka merely chuckled as he set the last few things back in place. However, as he placed the last thing back on the sidetable, he froze, eyes widening slightly as he seemed to be lost to the world around him, a slight frown crossing his face.

"You hear it too?" Raiden muttered, his eyes pulsating slightly in a regular pattern.

"Yeah…" Gingka muttered. "I hear it…"

"... Hear what?" Hyoma asked, sounding nervous.

"We'd better hurry up and get to the bey world, that's all." Gingka said, stepping away from them and heading to his room. Hyoma glanced between him and Raiden confusedly. Isha snapped the other wing back into place. Raiden did not react, too deep in thought about whatever had happened to even notice the shooting pain that went from the joint down to his back.

"What did they hear…?" Hyoma wondered to himself.


	7. Flashes

"Wake up! Who's ready for an extra-special round of Benkei's super special training routine before we get to our other training with Raiden?" Benkei's voice echoed through the house the next morning, only to be greeted by annoyed groans as nearly everyone else buried their heads under their pillows to block out his shouting.

"Benkei… It's three in the morning…" Raiden groaned, sprouting his wings and using them to cover his head as Benkei came in and yanked both his and Gingka's blankets right off of them.

"Go back to bed…" Gingka yawned, curling up and shivering slightly from the cold air.

"We gotta train if we wanna get ready faster!" Benkei said.

"Five more minutes… Or preferably hours…" Gingka grumbled, rolling over and snoring.

Benkei grumbled under his breath and went to see if Zero or Shinobu was up for his training. He opened the door and stepped in.

"Hey guys! Anyone up for some-" He began, but was not allowed to finish his sentence as, in perfect synchronization, Zero, Shinobu, Kite, and Eight sat up and all threw their pillows right in his face, causing him to stagger back in surprise before they slammed the door in his face.

"Oh come on! I thought you guys loved training!" Benkei exclaimed, kicking the door angrily before stomping off and sitting down on the couch to pout.

"Not at three in the morning." Raiden grumbled as he walked out of the room he was staying in and went to the kitchen, his wings bumping against several doorframes and walls as he walked.

"Yet you're up." Benkei commented. "Perhaps you want to do some training."

"Nah. I'm just up because you woke me up and I can't go back to sleep with all your annoying shouting." Raiden grunted, peering into the fridge in an attempt to find something to eat.

"Well we gotta get started training sometime." Benkei said. "You gotta agree with me on that."

"In a way, I do. But not before about six in the morning." Raiden grunted. "Are you just mad that I replaced you as the trainer? Because honestly I'd like to see you try training people with a sword with what you were doing yesterday."

"I was doing just fine!" Benkei protested. "I beat Gingka!"

"He disarmed you still." Raiden mused, shutting the fridge and shoving a carrot in his mouth before walking back to his bed.

Benkei grumbled under his breath and went into the living room to wait. He did have to admit that he was a bit annoyed at the fact that his training was being ignored. Then again, it was not like anyone around here, or anywhere else, was exactly thinking about training for beyblading at the moment anyway, considering all of the crazy things that had been happening. First the beys pulsing, then something being definitely wrong with Gingka, then all of the beys suddenly disappearing, now Raiden showing up, and some long story about another world that they were going to travel to to go save their beys.

Benkei allowed his thoughts to drift to what Bull might look like. After all, Raiden had a human form and was apparently Gingka's original Pegasus, and Gingka's current Pegasus was apparently female.

"I bet that Bull's even bigger and stronger than I am, able to lift an entire mountain with one hand!" he thought, smirking. "Then that idiot will have to admit that Bull and I are better."

Benkei paused, suddenly wondering whether his bey was alright. He reached down and placed one hand on the empty carrying case at his side, his eyes narrowing slightly in worry. From what Raiden had said, every last bey in the world was in trouble, especially those who were stronger. Granted, Bull was not one of the Legendary Beys, but he was still one of the strongest. He would surely be a target as well.

"You'd better be alright, Bull…" Benkei muttered under his breath. "I'm coming for ya…"

"Ifrit? Ifrit!" Zero's voice called from down the hall, shouting for his bey.

Benkei looked up sadly, just as the other younger bladers also started calling for their beys. He sighed and laid down on the couch, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to block out the sadness that entered his mind, as well as the empty feeling that was there from having lost all but a residual connection with Bull.

The sounds of the younger bladers shouting soon woke Gingka as well, the redhead sitting up in bed and glancing over at Raiden, who was also sitting up and staring towards the door in a sorrowful manner.

"Normally those names are called in the excitement of battle… Not like this… It was never supposed to be like this…" Raiden whispered.

"Yeah…" Gingka sighed. "All the more reason to fix it as soon as we can."

Raiden nodded. "Yeah…" He sighed. "Especially since lives depend on it."

"Lives on more than one planet, from what you said…" Gingka yawned. "Maybe we should wake them up before they panic more in their dreams…"

"If they are actually dreams and not reality playing before their eyes due to their subconscious connections with their beys taking over at the moment."

"Then all the more reason to wake them up." Gingka sighed. "I've had those and while they are good for getting a sense of urgency into my mind, I wouldn't want to relive them very often."

Raiden nodded. "Perhaps your friend Benkei was onto something after all when he was trying to get us all up for training a little bit ago."

"Well I don't want to go back to sleep now." Gingka sighed. "The images coming through my connection are getting worse, if that makes any sense."

"As in the situation with her is getting more and more serious." Raiden said.

"Yeah." Gingka sighed. "I can't sleep comfortably knowing that there are others dear to me who are in danger."

"Makes sense. Me either. You're getting more of a defined visual of it though." Raiden said.

"I'm a little surprised that you're getting any of it at all." Gingka said, looking at the glowing blue eyes of the humanoid.

"Well, on top of beys having similar bonds with each other, she and I do have the sibling bond plus, oh what do you humans call it… Twin telepathy?"

Gingka raised an eyebrow. "You mean you and her are not only siblings, but twins?"

Raiden chuckled. "Same aura color, remember? We're both . We're twins."

"Huh… Learn something new every day with beys I guess." Gingka said, sliding over to the edge of his bed and slipping his feet into his shoes. "You up for waking up our distressed comrades? Maybe they'll wanna train now."

"It is still dark outside."

"Well, Nemesis covering the world in darkness, we may need that sort of training." Gingka sighed, wrapping his scarf around his shoulders and neck and heading for the door.

"True." Raiden sighed. "I'm surprised you guys progressed as far as you did. It's only been about a week that I've been here and already you guys have pretty good form."

"Well then, all the better, since that means we'll be ready for our mission sooner." Gingka said.

Raiden nodded and sighed.

"Homesick?" Gingka asked, leading the way down the hall towards where he could hear Zero and the others shouting still in their sleep.

"How did you…?" Raiden looked at Gingka in surprise.

Gingka chuckled. "I can see it in your eyes, for one thing, and for another, there's still a residual bond between us."

"Ahh… Yeah… I do miss it." Raiden sighed.

"We'll have to see if we can get you back in the air. Who knows how helpful it'll be for you to be able to fly once we get there." Gingka said as he went into the room and began to shake Zero awake.

"Hmm… Duck." Raiden said suddenly with a mischievous smirk spreading across his face.

Gingka glanced at the humanoid with a raised eyebrow before pressing himself flat against the floor as Raiden spread his wings and flapped them once, hard, the movement blowing him back slightly and practically causing a tornado in the room that swept up just about everything with it and flung them all against the wall. Several voices screeched in surprise as they were rudely awakened, slamming into the wall before landing in a heap all atop each other. Gingka yelped and narrowly avoided being landed on himself by rolling out of the way.

"What just happened!?" Kite's voice rang out from the pile of bladers and sleeping bags. "Are we under attack?! Someone fight back! I'll help you in a minute!"

"Why am I on my head?!" Shinobu demanded angrily. "This is NOT a pleasant way to wake up!"

"Zero, this had better NOT be your butt in my face! ...Or anyone else's butt, for that matter!" Eight yelled in a muffled tone.

"Ouch! Alright, who elbowed my stomach?!" Zero exclaimed.

Raiden promptly fell over laughing at the chaos he had caused. Gingka sat up and joined in the laughter, having to admit that he was rather amused at the forced dogpile, even though he had nearly ended up stuck at the center of it himself. The group of yelling bladers soon fell absolutely silent at the sound of the two laughing.

"... With all due respect, Gingka… You're gonna pay for this." Shinobu's voice muttered grumpily.

"Hey, hey, it wasn't me. I don't have wings to cause a hurricane-force wind that throws everything in the air in the first place." Gingka laughed, scooting to the side and pressing himself up against the wall.

Raiden looked at his former master confusedly, wondering why the redhead was doing this. Moments later, the question was answered, as all four young bladers launched at the humanoid simultaneously with an enraged shout.

Raiden's already pale skin turned another shade paler before he abruptly vanished, using his old speed to escape and causing the group of bladers to smack into the opposite wall behind him.

"Get back here!" Zero yelled, darting immediately after the humanoid with the others following close behind.

Gingka chuckled and got up, following them. He was fairly certain that Raiden would not need his help, but who knew? Zero and the others could be quite ingenious if they really put their minds to it, and sometimes even when they did not.

"We've got you cornered now!"

Gingka followed the shouting to the backyard, where he found Raiden pressed between the angry bladers and the high fence.

"Get him!" Zero called, as they all leaped forwards to tackle Raiden.

Gingka's eyes widened suddenly as he spotted, in that split second, something reignite in Raiden's eyes.

"There you are… Just as you were…" He whispered, smirking as a shockwave of undescribable energy rippled harmlessly through the air, the wind picking up for an instant before dying back down as Zero and his friends landed in a heap in the corner. They looked down in confusion, noting that they had tackled a mere patch of grass and not the humanoid they were expecting.

"Where'd he go?" Shinobu growled.

"Calm down. And look up." Gingka said, pointing high in the air above their heads, where the dark clouds overhead were beginning to glow a brilliant blue. Lightning flashed, but no thunder followed.

"Whoa…" Zero gasped, staring in surprise.

"I think you gave him a little bit of incentive to reawaken those old and long-dormant powers." Gingka said, stepping outside to join the others as they all looked up at the sky, where the darker clouds were now being forced to retreat, revealing Raiden, who was glowing brighter than before, his wings flapping powerfully to keep him in the air that was churning around him and being filled with the power he had.

"Go for it, Pegasus!" Gingka called, using his hands as a megaphone to encourage the bey, who looked down and smiled softly before drawing his arms and knees to his chest, curling into a brightly glowing ball in midair.

Benkei, Madoka, Hyoma, Maru, and Ren came outside, having seen the bright glow coming through the windows.

"Is that…?" Madoka left her question unfinished.

"Yeah. Seems he's gotten his old strength back." Gingka said, grinning widely as the glowing ball that was currently hiding Raiden from their view grew larger and brighter, the still-visible wings also glowing and nearly tripling in size, whipping up the air around them and even causing slight breezes that grew steadily stronger as time went on.

"What is he doing…?" Benkei wondered aloud.

"Oh, you'll see." Gingka chuckled. "Yeah! That's the spirit, Pegasus!" He shouted again.

Just as Gingka's voice fell silent, a loud, powerful-sounding whinny echoed through the air, as a large shockwave blew the rest of the clouds away, replacing them with brilliant blue flames.

"Whoa!" The group standing on the ground exclaimed, as all but one of them saw the full glory of a winged horse for the first time.

"It's… Beautiful." Ren whispered, staring up along with the others at the large winged horse that was now stamping his feet among the flames he himself had spread.

"Now that's a fine sight for sore eyes!" Gingka exclaimed, punching the air excitedly with a wide grin on his face.

The others glanced at Gingka and chuckled at his enthusiasm, the fire in his eyes that was only partially reflected, and mostly shining out from deep inside him. Raiden reared up on his hind legs and charged forwards, the wind and flames trailing behind him as he galloped in a wide circle around the sky before tucking his wings back and diving towards them, spreading his wings back out at the last second and gliding neatly over their heads.

"Wow… Just… Wow…" Zero whispered.

"No matter how many times you see this it's still the same level of awesome. Trust me." Gingka chuckled.

"... You've seen this before?" The others looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Gingka chuckled and looked at them. "I've seen Pegasus in my dreams all the time. Sometimes even during battle. Just as clearly as I can see him now."

"... If that doesn't tell us how long of a way we all have to go, then I don't know what will." Kite said, sweatdropping.

"No kidding." Eight said, gaping at Gingka, who had turned his attention back to the sky and to the winged horse still soaring over their heads.

"... You guys haven't seen your beys like that?" Zero asked.

"... You have?!" The others stared at Zero as if he had grown a second head.

Zero shrugged. "I have since shortly after coming to Metal Bey City and meeting all of you guys."

"It's not that complicated really." Gingka said. "If you have a strong enough bond with your bey, how powerful you are doesn't matter a ton."

"... Somehow I feel like that was an insult." Zero laughed.

Gingka chuckled. "It wasn't. Being able to see the actual spirit of one's bey is rather impressive since it's rare for it to happen."

"Now I feel insulted." Kite huffed.

Gingka sweatdropped. "You're probably close. Just listen to Leviathan more… Once we get it back."

The others sighed and looked away, suddenly remembering that their beys were still missing and in danger. Raiden soon detected the change in mood and swooped back down, transforming back to humanoid as he landed and folding his wings.

"I think that we're near being able to do what we need to." He said, his voice now practically throbbing with power.

Gingka turned to him and nodded. "I say we leave as soon as possible. We won't be able to match up to much swordfighting levels quickly enough, but if all goes according to plan, we won't have to."

Raiden nodded. "And with my full abilities back, I can do most of the swordfighting."

"Well then…" Gingka said, looking around at the others. "Still early in the morning, but since we're all quite awake… Who's up for more training before we head off to the beys' world?"

"Well from the dreams we were having I'd rather head out now…" Zero admitted.

Gingka raised an eyebrow and looked at the others, who nodded.

"You are aware that we don't know exactly what to expect and that none of us are even close to being expert fighters at anything outside of Beyblade." He said in a warning tone.

"Yeah, but our beys need us! They're in trouble and could be dying any second now!" Ren exclaimed.

"We can't wait any longer! They were asking for us to help them just before we woke up." Eight said sadly.

"I've never heard Salamander sound so scared." Shinobu said.

"Leviathan was screaming…" Kite muttered.

Gingka frowned, narrowing his e yes before turning to Raiden.

"Your world. You know it better than we do. What do you think?"

Raiden took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "We go. Better sooner than later. I should be able to open a portal to just about anywhere I want to. Which means I can take us to one other person who can help."

"Then let's go." Gingka said.

Raiden nodded and spread his wings wide, concentrating deeply and taking a couple of deep breaths before a ring of flames opened up behind him, a starry scene being pictured that rapidly zoomed forwards before showing a volcanic scene, with lava spurting from a black crystalline ground and dark, ominous clouds overhead. Roaring voices echoed, some strangely familiar to more than just a couple pairs of ears.

"Go through. I cannot keep this open for extremely long." Raiden said, continuing to breathe deeply.

"Well then. Off we go." Gingka said, becoming the first to leap through. He appeared on the other side and looked around, eyes wide at the beautiful yet deadly-looking scene that was now surrounding him.

"Long time no see." A voice said, and Gingka turned, eyes widening at the creature he saw and the figure standing just in front of it.

"No way…"


	8. Discovery

"... How are you still alive?!" Gingka exclaimed, simply staring as Raiden and the others came through the portal, which closed right behind them.

"... What in the name of..?!" Benkei exclaimed in shock.

"... Huh?" Zero and the others looked confused, having not recognized the man towering over them as he stood atop a rock, white and red hair gleaming in the light from the lava spurting from the ground around them.

"Are you really that surprised, Hagane?" Ryuga sneered, patting the cheek of the large red-orange dragon hovering behind and around him. "Of course I survived. Once I passed part of my Star Fragment to that kid, L-Drago teleported us here."

"I suppose I shouldn't be as surprised as I am." Gingka chuckled.

"We don't have time to waste being surprised anyway." The dragon next to Ryuga spoke, heat rippling off of its fangs.

Gingka suddenly looked very amused. "So. L-Drago is female too, huh?"

Ryuga looked annoyed. L-Drago snarled.

"Was that supposed to be an insult?" She growled.

"Calm yourself, Tatsuhime." Ryuga said. "It's not his fault he's an idiot who apparently still hasn't learned his place."

Gingka gained a tick mark "Hey! Says the guy who tried to fight all by himself and lost terribly."

Ryuga threw one arm to the side to block the dragon, whose name was apparently Tatsuhime, from eating Gingka right then and there.

"Enough of this." Raiden rolled his eyes. "We have way more important things to do here."

"We'll probably need your help." Gingka said, looking at Ryuga. "Like last time when you declined."

"Is someone going to explain what in the name of sanity is going on here?" Kite asked.

"Guys, meet Ryuga. The Dragon Emperor himself." Gingka said simply. "Now, let's get on with this and get to work."

"Something better done inside." Ryuga said. "Here we risk Mao finding us too easily, although he thinks he chased all of the dragons out of this mountain and apparently also thinks that he successfully killed Tatsuhime all those years ago."

"You wanna show him otherwise by helping us this time instead of going on your own?" Gingka asked.

Ryuga huffed. "I'd say no but experience has proven to me that that is not the best idea. I'm in. But don't count on it staying that way for good."

Gingka chuckled. "I know you well enough to know that much. Where are we going to go 'inside' to, anyway? I don't see any buildings."

Ryuga and Tatsuhime glanced at each other and smirked.

"This is the country of the dragons… Why would we need buildings when we have the caverns of the volcano?" Tatsuhime said.

Several jaws dropped at this statement.

"You mean.. 'inside' means… Inside the volcano?!" Kite squeaked in a high-pitched tone.

"Well… that does fit you." Gingka chuckled. "We'd better get inside then. I hear roaring that's not from her."

"Follow me." Tatsuhime said, her body catching on fire and shrinking until she stood in a humanoid form, cold red eyes glancing over the group before she turned on one heel and strode off, a thick cape and long, braided hair swaying behind her as she walked.

"... I don't mean to be rude, Ryuga, but… I can't help but notice she's missing her left arm." Gingka said softly to Ryuga as they followed.

"Nemesis battle. That's all you need know." Ryuga grunted, jogging ahead slightly to catch up with his bey, who had paused to calculate her movement before gathering her thick cape in one hand and holding it all to one side, then dropping neatly down a hole in the ground.

"Make sure you time it or you might get singed." Ryuga said, following immediately after the dragon woman.

Gingka sweatdropped. "You could give us some useful information on, oh, I don't know… How to time it properly?!" He shouted down the hole.

"Hint: Don't jump within the next five seconds and step back from the hole. Jump right after the spurt, all of you." Tatsuhime's voice called back at him.

"... Great. Jumping down an active lava geyser. We did NOT sign up for this." Kite grumbled.

"Technically you did sign up for whatever you'd meet here." Raiden said, counting the seconds by tapping his foot on the ground. Just as Tatsuhime had said, five seconds later, flames erupted from the ground.

"Jump down the hole, he says. You'll be fine, he says." Benkei joked.

"Shut up and let's just do this." Gingka groaned, running forwards and jumping down the hole as soon as the spurt had faded. The others gulped and followed him, quickly.

"Sheesh, you guys can't have, like, air conditioning down here?" Zero panted once they were all inside, another lava spurt flowing past the outside of the hole they were now standing in.

"It's a volcano. What did you expect, some nice little ski resort and an ice cream cone? Deal with it, kid. Things aren't always comfortable." Ryuga huffed, taking the lead deeper into the cavern, black walls glowing nearly red-hot with heat.

Gingka chuckled under his breath and ruffled Zero's hair as he followed after the two.

"So, your group has somehow come here and I see that you were teleported by Pegasus, probably trying to stop what's going on here, heh?" Ryuga said.

"Pretty much." Gingka said. "We have to get our beys out of his clutches though before we can defeat him."

"Well, obviously. You lot clearly don't have the ability to even try fighting the way beys do." Ryuga snorted.

Kite opened his mouth to protest, but Gingka covered it with his hand.

"Don't bother. He's just like that." Gingka chuckled under his breath before addressing Ryuga again. "And I suppose you can?"

Ryuga paused for a moment. "... To an extent." He said before continuing on his path.

"So what is the plan?" Tatsuhime asked as she stepped into a much more spacious room and sat down on an outcropping of rock, crossing one leg over the other and her one arm over her stomach as she leaned back against the warm rocks.

"Basically find out where our beys are being held and break them out so that they can regroup and be able to fight all together instead of separately." Gingka said, placing one hand on a rock to test the temperature before sitting down, having decided that it was not too hot to sit on after all.

"Only two of us here probably have any clue as to where Mao would hold anyone captive. I'm half surprised that he doesn't seem to have just killed them." Ryuga grunted.

"It would be a greater victory to him to see the look of despair on the faces of his enemies as he takes over and destroys all that they fought so hard to preserve. The greater agony is the mental one. It is the same principal that caused him to drag out the battle against me." Tatsuhime said. "The only reason he attempted to finish it is that he detected your group coming, and knew that if all four seasonal fragments were brought together against him, he would lose all chances of victory."

"So if your reasoning is correct, he will keep them alive until he has conquered and destroyed both this world and Earth." Raiden said.

Tatsuhime nodded. "I believe so."

"But where would he hold them?" Gingka wondered, looking thoughtful.

Raiden turned to his former master. "You and the other bladers were dreaming and could practically see through the eyes of your beys. If you can describe what you saw, perhaps Tatsuhime and I can figure out approximately where they might be. The hard part will be getting there, since we only have two of us who can fly and I'd assume that all other transportation methods are down."

"We can definitely try." Gingka said.

"Any sort of hint can narrow it down. The landscapes here are quite diverse." Tatsuhime said. "You have seen the volcanic nature of this island. Some are entirely crystalline, some grassy plains. If you can describe anything about the landscape we should be able to pinpoint a near-exact geographic location."

"Noted. I guess we'd better get to work then." Gingka said, glancing around at the other bladers, who nodded.

"I don't remember much, but maybe I can get through to Ifrit since we're now closer." Zero said.

"You should be able to." Raiden said. "Since you are now on the same planet."

"Let's do it then." Gingka said.

"If you need silence to focus, there are several other caverns that branch off from this one." Tatsuhime said, gesturing to some openings in various places of the walls surrounding them. "We will wait here. Once you have any sort of description of the area, come back and tell us."

"Got any maps? We should mark down where these all are so that we can go find them easily." Raiden said.

"Through there is the library. There is a large map on the wall." Tatsuhime said.

"On it. Mind if I bring it in here?" Raiden asked as he slipped through the door.

"Not at all." Tatsuhime replied calmly, closing her eyes as everyone disappeared through various openings in the jet black rock.

Gingka sighed, rather glad that the room he had entered was much cooler than the ones they had just been in. He had to admit that he agreed with Zero's request for air conditioning. It was surreal, sitting here in the near-darkness, the only light in any room being from the warmth of the rocks as they glowed from the lava behind them. He supposed that dragons rather liked the heat. After all, they were reptiles, and by Earth's science, that meant cold-blooded. However, now was not exactly the time to focus on biology, he reminded himself. He could be fascinated with this whole strange world after the crisis was over.

"Alright, Pegasus… Where are you…" He muttered, closing his eyes and trying to reach out to the bey. He could still feel a residual connection, which seemed to be strengthening a bit now that he was in her world. He frowned slightly, beginning to grow worried as the feelings that had always told him what his bey wanted began to trickle through.

"You're afraid…" He whispered. "Don't be afraid, Pegasus… We're coming to save you."

Gingka glanced down at his hands slightly, finding that the fear bleeding through his mental link with Pegasus was causing him to tremble in fear that was not even his own. He took a deep breath, managing to stay calm and reminding himself that he had to for Pegasus's sake right now.

"Where are you… Tell me.. Or show me… Something… Come on… I know you can hang in there." Gingka sighed, trying to find something other than darkness and fear coming from his bey. He could feel something pulling, something that Pegasus was resisting, or perhaps it was just holding her in place and she was trying to break free of it. Whatever it was, Gingka immediately hated it. He could feel the intense loathing that the winged horse had for being tied down and unable to be free. It made sense, considering that she had rejected any attempts at a blader controlling her, and he himself was only able to get her to do what he wanted because he had promised her a partnership rather than a master.

Gingka sighed and refocused his thoughts on finding out where his bey was. He knew she was far, but of course 'far' was not going to tell Raiden and Tatsuhime much. After a while, he opened his eyes and looked around once more at the dully-glowing rocks.

"You... seem to have a much nicer sight around you... than I do..." A soft voice crept into his thoughts, causing him to jump slightly and look around in confusion before he recognized it.

"... Pegasus?" He said in a soft tone, as if afraid to scare her voice away.

"I am here…" the female voice replied quietly.

"I'm coming to get you." Gingka said firmly.

"You will want help..." Pegasus replied.

"I've got Raiden and Tatsuhime."

"I see. So my brother… did make it to you then…"

"Yeah." Gingka sighed. "Do you have any clue where you are, Pegasus?"

"We are all scattered… So that we cannot gather…"

"I figured." Gingka sighed. "The others are working on that."

"This is not a place I want you to come to…"

"Too bad. I'm coming anyway. Because I promised. Also because if I don't then we can't beat Nemesis or Mao or whatever name you call him by."

"I knew you were going to say that…"

"You can't keep me from coming by not telling me where you are, Pegasus." Gingka said firmly. "So tell me. Now. Everything depends on it." He paused to wait, but several minutes passed without a reply.

"Pegasus…?" He said softly, worried at the sudden absence of her voice.

"Kaminari…" Her voice came, fainter and almost weaker than before, as Gingka was aware that she was feeling suffocated by something that was even more frightening.

"Huh? Is that where you are?"

"No… That's my actual name… I figured you should know it…"

Gingka put one hand on the wall of the cavern he was in to keep himself from animefalling. "Okay, good to know, but… That's not what I asked." He said.

Kaminari sighed softly within his head. "I am within the same trap that Mao broke out of, the one that we placed him in all those years ago." She said. "Hurry…"

Gingka bit his lip nervously as her voice faded breathlessly from his head. "I'm on my way…" He whispered before whirling and striding out of the side cavern he was in to find the others already gathered back there.

"What took you so long?" Benkei joked.

"She was rather stubborn about telling me." Gingka replied. "But I have her exact location."

Tatsuhime raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

"Zeus's Barrier." Gingka replied.

"... What is that?" Zero asked, noticing the look of understanding and small frown that flashed across the faces of the two beys, Benkei, and Ryuga.

"The only thing that can seal Nemesis. In this world it takes the form of a very high-security prison that cannot be broken out of… Supposedly."

"It was incomplete when we formed it before because of that one other bey." Gingka said. "He probably used that to get out somehow."

"It cannot technically be completed and locked fully without all four seasons and no interruptions." Tatsuhime said. "Therefore, she cannot be fully trapped inside, as she would be needed to seal it, along with the other three seasonals."

"It's not going to matter. We need to get her out immediately." Gingka said.

"Where are the others?" Raiden asked, a slight worried frown on his face at the urgency in Gingka's tone.

"... Ifrit was occupied, uh, faceplanting into mud…?" Zero said, scratching the back of his head. "That was about all I got before the connection was blocked with a feeling of strong embarrassment."

"... I think Ifrit and Salamander are in the same place then. I also got the idea of a muddy, swampish place, and someone else nearby falling." Shinobu said.

"That pinpoints a general location." Tatsuhime said.

"Some alleyway." Benkei said, waving dismissively. "It was rather cold and rainy."

"Leviathan and Orochi were locked up in some prison surrounded by a desert." Kite said.

"Phoenix was trapped in a cave and it was dark. That's all I got."

"Phoenix will be a bit harder to narrow down then." Raiden said. "But I think we can still do it."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Gingka asked, standing. "We'd better get moving quickly."

"I'll fly you to Zeus's Barrier and help you break in. From what we've heard, that's the most urgent situation." Raiden said.

"Normally I do not simply give rides," Tatsuhime spat the last two words, "But since there is no other way, I will take the rest around to the other locations. Their beys can get them out and bring them back here once they find them."

"Then let's go." Gingka said, turning to Raiden, who nodded and led the way out of the tunnels.

"If any of you fall off I am not going to come back to pick you up. Just so you are aware." Tatsuhime said, standing as well and leading the way out of the cave.

"Here goes nothing." Gingka said, scrambling onto Raiden's back as soon as the two were out of the caverns and back on the planet's surface. The winged horse reared onto his hind legs slightly before charging forwards, unfurling his wings and spreading them parallel to the ground as he galloped, running for several seconds before shooting into the air, heading as fast as he could towards where he and Gingka both knew that the beginning of their fight back against Nemesis lay.


	9. Reunions

"Alright, jump off." Tatsuhime said as she hovered over a swampy, filthy-looking island.

"Uhh… Can't you go a little lower?" Zero asked nervously.

"There's a tree right there, now off." Tatsuhime snapped her jaws at Zero and Shinobu, who yelped and immediately slid off her scaly back.

"Good luck guys!" Benkei, Kite, and Eight called as the two rivals plunged through the treetops and out of sight.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Zero yelped as he hit several tree branches on the way down, becoming entangled in some vines along the way and bouncing down out of the tree, his head coming within inches of the ground before he was jerked back upwards.

"... Well that's one way to meet." a young female voice said.

Zero froze, tensing, then opened his eyes, only to find his face inches away from that of a young girl, who looked to be about thirteen. She was staring at him with bright, slightly glowing red eyes, the rest of her body covered in the black mud that was surrounding the small patch of moss and rocks she was standing on.

"... Ifrit?" Zero guessed, turning beet red from embarrassment.

"Mmhmm. Now hold still." The girl said, drawing a large sword from her side.

"W-Wait a second!" Zero exclaimed, but before he could finish, Ifrit had swung the sword, slicing the vines that were holding her blader and causing him to land head-first in the mud below.

Zero popped up spluttering and spitting mud out of his mouth.

"That's DISGUSTING! Why did you have to do that?!" He exclaimed angrily, trying to shake mud off as he climbed up onto the rocks with his bey.

"Well it was the quickest way to get you down." Ifrit said, resheathing her sword.

Zero grumbled and shoved her off the rock and into the mud.

"Now we're even." He said smugly as she popped back up and glared at him.

"Hey, this isn't time to be playing in the mud." Shinobu grumbled from higher up in the tree, where he was tangled in vines.

"Tell Sala that!" Ifrit exclaimed, climbing back out of the mud and shaking it from her clothing. "She's always in the mud!"

"I'm not right now. Plus, I'm a salamander. I'm supposed to be in the mud." Another voice cut in as two glowing orange shuriken flew through the vines holding Shinobu, causing him to fall into the mud as well.

"Well now we all blend in with our surroundings at least." Zero laughed as Shinobu popped up and spit out mud, making a disgusted face before glancing over as Salamander jumped down and landed in the mud next to him.

"... Now what?" Zero asked, looking around.

"We're supposed to regroup with the others, but Tatsuhime isn't coming back to get us and neither of these two can fly." Shinobu frowned. "So… I have absolutely no clue."

"Well… How'd you get here?" Zero turned to Ifrit.

"... I crash landed after being catapulted by a building explosion that I caused when the tip of my sword lit a trashcan on fire while I was hiding inside it to escape the merchant whose apple stand I had knocked over while running away from the destruction that Mao was causing…?" Ifrit said slowly, her face turning redder and redder even through the mud the further her tale went.

Zero and the others just stared at Ifrit in shock, their jaws nearly to the ground. The bey blushed sheepishly and hung her head.

"In case you couldn't tell, 'Frit is a bit of a klutz." Salamander said.

"Huh… Okay then." Zero said.

Ifrit crossed her arms and grumbled under her breath.

"We'd better focus more on getting out of here right now." Shinobu said. "And back to the others."

"Where were you supposed to meet?" Ifrit asked, brushing excess mud off of herself.

Zero and Shinobu glanced at each other, realizing that they, in fact, did not know the name of the island they had been on.

"Well… It was volcanic or something and dragons lived there." Zero said. "Although, we only really saw one dragon, Tatsuhime, who dropped us off here."

"Maybe someone from my home will know what you're meaning." Salamander said. "We were just heading there when you dropped in."

"Sounds like a plan." Shinobu said. "Lead the way then."

Salamander nodded and began walking off through the mud, while the others jumped from mossy patch to rock pile to dry ground to follow her.

"This place is sorta gross really…" Zero muttered.

"Tell me about it." Ifrit grumbled. "I much prefer my own home, thank you very much."

"What's yours like?" Zero asked, curious to learn more about this strange new world they were standing on and wading through.

"For one thing, no mud." Ifrit grunted, kicking a stick into the mud surrounding them. "Just different colored rocks and flames in various places and some pretty cool architecture."

"Huh. Maybe you can show me sometime."

"If we survive." Ifrit grumbled, continuing to walk as she rested one arm on the hilt of her sword.

"Of course we're gonna survive." Zero said. "We're gonna save both your world and mine."

"Right. Of course." Ifrit said, faking a smile, and Zero could tell, but decided to say nothing more about it.

"This is going to sound weird to you, but we have to go down. I promise you will be able to breathe." Salamander said, pausing at the edge of a particularly wide mud puddle.

"Whaaaa?!" Zero, Shinobu, and Ifrit exclaimed.

"It's not like you can get any dirtier." Salamander said before holding out one hand to Shinobu. "Do you trust me, Master Shinobu?"

Shinobu paused, looking into his bey's orange eyes before nodding and deciding that he did trust her. She was his partner, right? Salamander would not hurt her own master. Plus, she knew this place.

"I'm not so sure about this…" Zero and Ifrit said in sync before nearly jumping out of their skins as they heard an ominous roar echoing in the distance.

"That'd be Mao. We have to go. Now." Salamander said.

Shinobu took a deep breath and grabbed the outstretched hand of Salamander. "Now or never."

"Just be sure to take a big breath because you won't be able to breathe until we get through the outer barrier of the air bubble." Salamander said. "But it isn't at all far."

"Easy for you to say, you can breathe in this stuff!" Ifrit exclaimed.

"I don't think we have a choice…" Zero muttered. "We have to trust her. And Shinobu."

"Grab hands then." Salamander said. "I'll pull you all down quickly to minimize the time you have to hold your breath."

Zero and Ifrit gulped as they nodded and joined hands before Zero reached out and tightly grasped Shinobu's hand. Shinobu nodded to Salamander as they all stepped to the edge of the puddle.

"All together then." Salamander said. "Three. Two. One." She jumped, the others taking deep breaths and jumping with her, inhaling deeply before squeezing their eyes shut and holding on tightly to each other's hands.

Zero shuddered as he felt himself being pulled down. He wanted to fight it, as all of his instincts told him that he did not want to go down, but up. But he knew that there was too much danger up. He could feel Ifrit wanting to let go and resurface as they were pulled deeper through the thick, slimy mud. But he knew that he could not let her. He had lost his partner once. He was not going to do it again. With that thought in mind, Zero tightened his grip on Ifrit's hand, calming himself down and hoping that she would notice him calming down and calm down as well.

All at once, the pressure of the mud around them disappeared, as Zero felt himself become sprayed by something quite warm and much more pleasant-feeling than the mud that had been previously surrounding his entire body and getting in places he didn't know existed.

"I'm back and I brought friends." Salamander called.

Zero and the others opened their eyes and gaped in surprise at the rather pleasant-looking village around them, with its surprisingly clean domed roofs and round buildings.

"I did not expect this under a mud puddle." Shinobu admitted.

"We may like dirt but we also like fresh water. Which is what sprayed us as we came in, by the way." Salamander said.

"That's a relief." Ifrit said, shaking extra water out of her short, slightly spiky hair.

"Now we can actually see what you look like." Zero joked.

"Mud is good at hiding features." Salamander commented, leading the way off towards one of the smaller buildings on the edge of the little town they were standing in. "We'd better hurry if we're gonna regroup with your friends who can fly."

"Agreed." Shinobu said, jogging off after his bey, with Zero and Ifrit following close behind.

In the meantime, Benkei had been dropped off on the outskirts of a large city shrouded in darkness, with only a few streetlights to light anywhere.

"It just HAD to be raining… Come on Bull, where are ya…" Benkei muttered, darting from street corner to street corner and looking for anything familiar to what he had seen for those few moments of time when he had tried to figure out where his bey was. He paused as he saw something hovering far off down the street. Something in the back of his mind told him that it was not something he wanted to see him. So, he ducked down an alleyway, his feet splashing through the puddles.

"I bet that has something to do with Nemesis…" Benkei muttered as he watched what appeared to be some sort of patrol vehicle float slowly by, scanning for something. A small whimpering sound suddenly caught his attention. He turned, looking for the source. A small figure darted across an opening that led to another alleyway. Benkei frowned and followed the figure, guessing that it was a small child he was following.

"Hey! Wait up!" Benkei called, chasing after the child, who kept running further and further down the alleyways before pausing in a doorway and looking back at Benkei, glowing red eyes peering from the shadows of the hood that was hiding most of his young face. The child beckoned before disappearing inside.

Benkei paused, a natural unease at the sight of red eyes welling up inside him. Was this a trap of some sort? He was not sure, but he was curious about what this small child wanted. After thinking for a few moments, Benkei decided to go in after all. Bey or not, he was sure he could deal with a small child. So, through the darkened doorway he went, narrowing his eyes slightly and looking around. He soon spotted a small fire across the room, with the child silhouetted against it.

"Who are you?" Benkei asked, stepping closer.

The child did not reply, shaking slightly with his arms around his knees, drawing them to his chest as he buried his face in them. Benkei suddenly realized that the child was crying.

"Hey, are you alright?" He asked worriedly, sitting down next to the child and putting a hand on his back. The tiny boy immediately shifted positions and pressed his face into Benkei's side, clinging to the blader's jacket and trembling slightly.

"I won't hurt you, don't worry." Benkei said, putting an arm around the tiny child. He wondered where this kid's parents were. Surely he had some. Perhaps something had happened to them. Benkei felt a sudden familiar protectiveness coming over him as he lifted the child into his lap. Trusting red eyes looked up at him quietly, as the boy swiped a few tears away.

"What's wrong?" Benkei asked.

The boy did not respond, merely reaching up and pulling off his hood. Benkei blinked and stared at him, taking immediate note of the twin spikes of hair that stuck out to the sides like horns. To be more specific, the horns of a bull.

"... You?!" Benkei exclaimed in surprise as he realized that the tiny child now sitting on his lap was, in fact, his own bey.

Bull grinned sheepishly. "I know… You expected me to be bigger… I can't help it…" He looked away sheepishly, as if ashamed that he did not live up to his blader's expectations.

"Well, yeah, but…" Benkei scratched the back of his head awkwardly, not sure what to do with the tiny child sitting in his lap. "You're kinda cute, actually."

Bull sweatdropped and looked up at his master. "'Cute'?" he grumbled, crossing his arms and looking rather annoyed.

Benkei laughed sheepishly. "Well, yeah… I was expecting you to be all huge and buff, but hey, you're still Bull even though you're not, right?"

Bull nodded. "Yeah. Still got that uppercut strength." He said, clenching one fist and looking at it.

"Well, now that I've found you, we'd better get back." Benkei said, standing and picking up the tiny boy.

"Back to where?" Bull asked, putting his arms securely around Benkei's head as the blader placed his bey on his shoulders.

"Whatever dragon-island-thing… Where L-Drago lives?" Benkei said.

Bull looked confused for a moment. "Oh. Drago's Island. Volcanic, right?"

"Yeah, that one." Benkei said. "You know how to get there? Tatsuhime isn't coming back to pick us up."

Bull snorted. "I'm not surprised. I'm surprised she gave you a ride at all, from what little I know of her."

Benkei chuckled and nodded as he slipped outside, Bull pulling his own hood over his head again as they entered the rain again.

"Turn right at that alleyway. I'll get us to some sort of transportation, but you'll have to fly it." Bull said. "I'm too small. That's why I've been stuck here, close to where Mao is, and to where he's keeping several of the others."

Benkei paused walking. "Others? Maybe we should go rescue them."

Bull shook his head. "Too dangerous. And no, the 'busting open the front door and charging in' approach wouldn't work at all. That'd just get us both killed and would let Mao know that you guys are here."

Benkei frowned. "Well, we can't just leave them. Gingka and the others who came here are finding their beys and getting them out of wherever they're stuck. Why can't we go help somehow?"

"You're not very sneaky." Bull sweatdropped. "For one thing."

"I can be when I want to be!" Benkei protested.

Bull rolled his eyes. "Just get us to the transportation… We need to get out of here…"

Benkei sighed, detecting how afraid his bey was. "Alright. Which way now?"

"Left." Bull said.

"If you don't see your beys in approximately five seconds I am dropping you off and going back home." Tatsuhime grumbled as she flew over a wide desert, where Kite and Eight claimed their beys were.

"Gahh, but this all looks the same!" Kite exclaimed. "I can't tell one sand dune apart from another to figure out if we're close!"

"There! I see something!" Eight exclaimed, pointing.

"Finally." Tatsuhime growled, turning her body and slithering towards where Eight was pointing.

"Now, off you go." She said, rolling over and dumping the two into the sand dunes below.

"Whoa-hey!" Kite yelped as he tumbled to a stop next to the two figures laying in the sand below them.

"Come back here!" Eight said. "We found them, so take us back just right away, won't you?!"

"I'm finished carrying imbeciles. Just find your way back." Tatsuhime roared as she flew off.

Kite and Eight looked at each other and sweatdropped before running to the two figures laying on the ground. They knew that these two were definitely Leviathan and Orochi, and they could tell that the two water creatures were not doing very well in this situation. Both were laying on the ground and seemed to be unconscious and badly dehydrated.

"Oi, Leviathan!" Kite exclaimed, turning the limp figure over and lifting it into his arms, finding himself holding a lithe-looking male figure with fins hanging from his arms and scales covering parts of his body.

"I think they're both dying." Eight whimpered as he somehow managed to get Orochi half onto his back. This proved to be difficult, considering that the bey was quite a bit larger than he was.

"It's a desert." Kite growled. "Of course they are. Let's get out of here."

"No… Time…" Leviathan croaked weakly.

"Of course there's time!" Kite yelled, shaking angrily and growling, trying to find a way out.

"Put us down on our feet…" Orochi said softly, his head leaning against Eight's shoulder. "Our special move…"

"... You want us to use those?" Eight looked confused as he complied with his bey's request, looking up at the humanoid as he stood, taking a deep breath.

Kite set down Leviathan and frowned before nodding to Eight.

"Orochi-Leviathan, Spiral Crush!" Kite called, unsure what would happen but listening to Orochi's wishes.

Much to the two bladers' surprise, the two glowed as they grabbed hands and raised their hands to the sky, the usual whirlpool appearing and spiraling around before exploding outwards and causing rain to fall everywhere as the two tilted their heads back, the rain moistening their dry skin and causing them to glow brightly.

"Whoa!" Eight yelped in surprise as Orochi looked back down and grinned sheepishly at him.

"Well… Now that we're rehydrated… Let's get moving." Leviathan said.


	10. Trap

"This isn't going to be easy… Is it…" Gingka muttered as he and Raiden hovered over a large, menacing black building surrounded by guards and engulfed in dark flames.

"Not at all." Raiden whinnied softly, hiding himself in the dark clouds so that they wouldn't be seen. "But at least we've gotten you some armor and an actual sword."

"Yeah I look like I could be from your clan now." Gingka joked, pulling a hood over his head and making sure that all of his hair was tucked into it, to avoid Nemesis realizing immediately who he was.

"You do match the rest of us." Raiden snorted. "Alright… Now getting in won't be as hard as getting out. If we can get her out without them noticing she's missing it'll be easier."

Gingka nodded. "Because if they notice that she's missing the alarm will be sounded and they'll be looking for her and intruders."

"Precisely. I don't know if we can get her out without her absence being noticed since we know basically nothing about how they're doing things." Raiden mused.

"Dangerous assault on a prison filled with people who want to take us down and who will probably kill us if we get caught rescuing our friend who may or may not be able to make it out on her own and might have to be carried. What are we waiting for?" Gingka joked.

Raiden snorted. "I hope she can make it out. Admittedly carrying just you with armor is difficult. I haven't yet recovered full strength."

Gingka frowned. "So if she's not able to fly at least on her own, then we'll be in trouble."

Raiden nodded, tossing his mane slightly. "I take it you can't tell from your connection with her."

Gingka sighed and shook his head. "No… I'm not getting anything from her right now. Nothing noticeable, anyway." He said.

"Well… Shall we go? I think the best thing would be to freefall in." Raiden said. "I can see an entrance there on the roof that's mostly unguarded. If we time it right we can get in there fairly easily, I think."

"And if we freefall they won't see a giant glowing winged horse swooping down. Good call." Gingka said. "But how will we land? We're high up."

"You fall below me and I'll spread my wings at the last second and soften our landing enough that we won't be injured." Raiden said. "Basically we somehow have to get you below me so that I can hold onto you and we can fall together."

"Brilliant. Now we've added stunt maneuvers into the mix of this rescue." Gingka rolled his eyes. "This day just keeps getting more and more exciting."

"Is someone getting scared?" Raiden teased.

Gingka chuckled. "Admittedly, slightly. But I trust you. We can do this."

Raiden nodded. "Be careful." He said, glowing softly and beginning to transform back to human form so that they could execute their plan.

"Think we can communicate like we did before you disappeared? It'd save having to worry about them hearing us." Gingka said.

"Worth the try." Raiden said. "Ready? I'm transforming."

"Yeah. Ready as I'll ever be." Gingka said, leaning forwards as the size of the being beneath him began to shrink down. He slid sideways, holding on carefully as he did so.

"Well. That worked better than I thought it would." Raiden said as he was able to grab hold of Gingka's shoulders and hold onto him, while the redhead held onto Raiden's arms. The two shifted, securing their grip.

"Ready?" Raiden asked.

"Not like I have a choice since you're the one keeping us airborne." Gingka chuckled, taking deep breaths to stay calm.

"True. Dropping now." Raiden chuckled as his wings vanished and he and Gingka plummeted towards the roof.

Gingka tensed immediately, forcing himself not to panic as they fell. He began counting in his head, focusing on the numbers. He knew that it would not be long before Raiden spread his wings again and halted their fall.

"Get ready to land… Three… Two… One…" Raiden whispered before an abrupt jerking motion indicated the spreading of his wings.

The two grunted and rolled slightly across the rooftop as they hit it, Gingka finding that the air had been practically knocked out of his lungs from the impact. He and Raiden laid there for a couple of seconds, gasping for breath, before scrambling to their feet and bolting inside the entrance that Raiden had spotted.

"Well… That… Went alright…" Raiden panted softly as he sunk into the shadows as best he could, forcing the glow in his eyes to vanish.

"Hopefully nobody… Heard anything…" Gingka whispered, trying to catch his breath as he steadied himself against the wall of the dark hallway they were now in.

"We'd best get moving then. Does this work?" Raiden's voice echoed in Gingka's head, much to the redhead's surprise.

"I'll take that as a yes." Raiden chuckled softly. Gingka smirked as a look at Raiden's face confirmed the fact that the bey, in fact, had said nothing aloud.

"Lead the way then." Gingka thought, and Raiden nodded solemnly before creeping forwards, one hand on his sword hilt, ready to fight if they needed to.

Gingka took deep breaths, focusing on the slight swaying movement of Raiden in front of him as the bey crept slowly ahead. The redhead had to admit that he was rather nervous about this entire operation. He had always trusted in a bey to blast through anyone and everyone in his way. He had never had to use stealth. Come to think of it, many things might have gone better in some of his past escapades had he used stealth, but then again, none of his past experiences with sneaking into buildings could have meant death if he had been caught.

"We'll be fine." Raiden reminded him mentally, sensing easily his former master's distress.

Gingka took a deep breath and sighed softly, smiling. "Yeah. What am I thinking, I'm not going in without a bey. I've got you."

Raiden chuckled at this, peering slowly around a corner and putting out one arm to signal Gingka to halt as a patrol crossed their path, heating down another hallway. Once it was passed, the two darted off across its path and into another shadow.

"There's starting to be a little more light here." Raiden whispered, pulling a black hood closer around his light blue hair to be sure that it was hidden completely.

"On the plus side of things, it means we can see better. But it also means we can be seen better." Gingka grumbled under his breath.

Raiden nodded. "According to the map I pulled, we need to keep going down… As in all the way to the basement underground…"

"... Elevator?" Gingka queried.

"Probably too risky." Raiden sighed. "If someone else needed to use it we'd be caught."

"True." Gingka frowned. "So we need to find a stairwell then or something."

Raiden paused and faced the wall, shielding the sight of a small holographic map that he pulled up and looked at with narrowed eyes.

"We should be here." He pointed. "Kaminari's all the way down here. In the highest security cell. I doubt we can go in through the front door."

"Well I always have preferred smashing through things." Gingka chuckled, keeping an eye out for any patrols.

Raiden chuckled under his breath. "Yeah but that's not very quiet, exactly. So unless we can find a quiet way to do so, I don't think that'll work."

Gingka looked thoughtful. "What's right above her?" He asked.

"Just a bunch of regular cells. Why?"

"Smash through the floor of an empty one. We'd be in." Gingka said.

Raiden stared at the redhead in surprise. "That… Could work… But I can't guarantee that we could find an empty one. And there will be more patrols. We're just on the offices right now."

"Most of their patrols seem to be outside." Gingka said. "We can try."

Raiden nodded. "If it wouldn't be a waste of time."

"Only one way to find out." Gingka pointed out.

"Touche. We'll try it." Raiden nodded and put away the map before continuing on.

Soon enough, the two managed to get to the ground floor of the prison, dodging several sentries, motion sensors, and security cameras on their way down. Raiden stood watch while Gingka managed to figure out the locations of any prisoners on the prison's computer database.

"There are some empty cells." Gingka said.

"Do they coincide with her location?" Raiden asked, holding up the map.

Gingka glanced back and forth several times between the list and the map, a concentrated and thoughtful frown on his face as he thought.

"That one does." He said after a while. "1134."

"Let's go then. Quickly. I hear another patrol coming." Raiden said.

Gingka nodded and shut down the computer before darting off and leading the way towards the cell he had indicated. He only hoped that the records were correct. Then again, why wouldn't they be? It did not exactly make sense that Nemesis would change them. The dark bey was probably not even expecting anyone to dare breaking into the prison. Gingka may not know a whole ton about Nemesis, but he did know that the god of destruction was quite prideful and probably thought that everyone was afraid of him. Then again, everyone, Gingka himself included, did have a legitimate reason to be afraid of Nemesis. Gingka had to admit that he was, in fact, afraid of the evil bey that had nearly destroyed his world seven years ago. But he knew how to push that fear aside and fight anyway, because the consequences of not fighting were the same or worse than the consequences of fighting.

"You can worry about Mao later." Raiden's voice interrupted Gingka's thoughts. "We gotta get Kaminari out first. Plus, you're still linked to her and probably not helping her mental state."

"Right. Sorry." Gingka sighed as he opened the door to the cell.

"Look out!" Raiden exclaimed mentally, shoving Gingka aside and using his sword to block and deflect an arrow that flew at them.

Gingka bit back a yelp, knowing that it was imperative to be quiet.

"... Raiden?! What the heck are you doing here?! And who is that with you?!" a voice hissed.

"Not really time to explain." Raiden grunted, stepping into the cell and pulling Gingka with him before mostly shutting the door, but not allowing it to latch.

Gingka looked around, his eyes adjusting to the dim lighting once more. He raised an eyebrow at a young male figure who was currently half-restrained to the wall by long chains that gave him some freedom of movement. He was holding a bow and arrow in his hands, ready to fire.

"They didn't bother taking your weapons, I see." Raiden whispered.

"I was able to hide them by making them vanish. This is my beast form weapon." The young man replied, his eyes glowing a faint gold color.

"Let me guess. Flash Sagittario." Gingka said softly.

The golden gaze was turned to the masked and hooded redhead as Sagittatio raised an eyebrow. "For you to be calling me by that name, you must not be a bey. How are you here?"

"It's Gingka. Your blader's friend. Kaminari's current blader and my former blader." Raiden said, examining the chains to see if he could figure out how to unlock them.

"Nemes- Mao didn't bother registering that you were in here, I guess." Gingka muttered.

"Now I remember you. Although obviously I would not have recognized you. Name's Thorgisl here, by the way."

Gingka nodded. "I'll try to remember that." He replied.

"Come help me with this." Raiden said. "I think we can get him out."

"The more help we've got the better." Gingka mumbled as he did so. "What do you need me to do?"

"If we pull these out at the same time it shouldn't set off any alarms." Raiden said.

Gingka raised an eyebrow. "'Shouldn't'?"

"Well… I don't know how this works." Raiden chuckled. "If it sets off an alarm we'll have to work quickly to get my sister out."

Gingka sweatdropped and shook his head. "I'd say we shouldn't do this but it's exactly the sort of thing I do. So we may as well."

"Orion and Kat should be nearby in other cells." Thorgisl said. "Mao needed them to partially seal Kaminari in. With her inside it won't seal completely but if you get the three of us it'll break open completely."

"So much for busting through the floor." Gingka said. "Not smart of him to keep all of you in the same place."

"Well… I'm surprised that I wasn't guarded, actually." Thorgisl muttered as Gingka and Raiden managed to get him free of his chains.

The two paused.

"... You're thinking what I'm thinking. I can feel it." Raiden said.

Gingka nodded. "There should have been guards."

"But there weren't, since you got in here so easily." Thorgisl said, frowning.

"Which has to mean only one thing." Raiden said, slowly turning towards the door.

"This is a trap." Gingka muttered under his breath.

"And you two walked right into it…" Thorgisl facepalmed. "I should have noticed that much immediately."

A slow, ominous clap came from behind them, just outside the doorway. Gingka and the others whirled towards it, only to spot a single figure with glowing eyes, one red, one purple, as well as wild light purple hair, wearing simple dark purple and black clothing and armor. He appeared to be approximately eighteen, but, considering that he was clearly not human, Gingka figured he was likely much older than that.

"I must applaud you for realizing that fact on your own. Although I must admit that I did not expect a blader to be involved at all. You should have stayed on your own planet and waited for your imminent destruction. Hagane."

"Who are you?" Gingka demanded, tensing as he felt a flicker of fear from Raiden.

"I think your buddy there can answer that." The young boy replied, gesturing to Raiden.

Gingka half-turned to the blue-haired bey, raising an eyebrow and silently asking the question.

"Dougal…" Raiden muttered, his voice betraying the fact that he was fighting to keep himself calm.

"Surprised to see me? I'm not surprised that you are. After all, you did think you had destroyed me and my siblings." Dougal replied.

Gingka tensed slightly. "Then… You're… Lightning L-Drago?"

"One-third of it, to be precise." Dougal rolled his eyes. "Three dragons, you should have figured it was three of us. But my brother and sister are occupied at the moment… Waiting for you, as a matter of fact."

This statement made both Gingka and Raiden feel very uneasy. Thorgisl bit his lip slightly, not daring to move even though he knew he could attack and could likely win this battle, considering that he had grown stronger than he was way back when Dougal and his siblings had been defeated by Raiden.

"Come along then. You really have no choice." Dougal said, laughing. "Karayan and Nereza are waiting to play."

Raiden gulped audibly at this, glancing at Gingka. However, the fear in Raiden's mind did not scare Gingka as much as the fact that the bey was deliberately refusing to release a piece of information that was clearly the main source of his fear. It was something that put Gingka in a lot of danger.

"Raiden. Tell me what's about to happen. I'd rather know what to expect than be surprised in this situation." Gingka thought, putting as much of a firm tone into his mind as he could.

Raiden sighed softly through his nose. "I can't. But Nereza isn't the one you need to worry about. It's Karayan who you will likely be dealing with. Each of the triplets controlled a different 'feature' if you want to call it that, of that bey. Three people in one bey is a forbidden technique because it's dangerous to the three and to anyone who fights them. It allowed for enormous amounts of damage to be done. I had to fight all three."

"Just explain." Gingka thought back. "And quickly. We don't have much time."

Raiden sighed softly as he and Gingka were handcuffed, their hands tied firmly behind their backs as guards escorted them out, Dougal leading the way.

"I'll sum up… Dougal was the normal mode of L-Drago. The one that was mostly used. In your world, the top of the bey form could shift, allowing for a second mode. That was controlled by Nereza. She does more of the power draining than the other two. Then there's Karayan… Who… Well…"

"Just tell me." Gingka snapped mentally.

Raiden sighed deeply. "You remember when Ryuga was possessed and began to change physically…?"

Gingka tensed. "You're saying…"

"Karayan's specialty is possessing bladers. You'd better hope you have a very strong mind to resist him or we're toast." Raiden said bluntly. "Because that's likely what they're planning. They're going to have Nereza drain my power, and Karayan is going to try to take your mind over and destroy you."

"... Great. Just what we needed." Gingka thought, forcing himself to stay calm. He would resist. He would make it through this… Or would he?


	11. Karayan

Gingka's mind was in turmoil. He did not know what was going on, or where he was, or what he should do to calm himself down. He could not tell whether he was awake or asleep, conscious or unconscious, standing up, sitting down, or laying down. He could not tell whether he was restrained or free. Was he even in control of his own mind? The last solid thing he remembered was what Raiden had told him about the enemy they were now up against.

Gingka narrowed his eyes. Focus. He needed to focus. That much he knew. But focus on what, precisely? He decided to focus on what he remembered, what had happened just before he had found himself here, wherever 'here' was. He remembered sneaking into the building with Raiden, that they had been headed to rescue Kaminari. He remembered meeting Thorgisl and realizing that they had fallen into a trap. Then he remembered Dougal, the first of the three evil triplets that apparently made up Lightning L-Drago. Dougal had captured them, he remembered. And Raiden had explained who the triplets were.

After that, everything seemed rather fuzzy. But Gingka could still recall bits and pieces of it. He remembered long, dark hallways. He could remember, partially, the other two of the triplets. They had met them, at some point. He could remember a brave smile that Raiden had put on shortly before being knocked out cold by the only girl among the three dragons. Nereza, was her name? Gingka was not sure, but Nereza seemed to be the name that came to mind. He could recall no features of her except that she had had an annoyingly shrill and maniacal voice, and that her eyes also glowed red and purple, but in a way that mirrored Dougal's.

Gingka remembered struggling, as he noted that he was rather exhausted, probably from doing so. He did not remember what had happened to Raiden after the bey's eyes had fallen shut under the influence of some sort of sedative, or at least what seemed to have that effect. Gingka hoped that was all that Raiden had been put under the influence of. He could no longer hear anything from the bey, which did not help the fact that he was already worried for him.

Gingka shivered slightly as he remembered that he had indeed been tied down so that he could not move. It was certainly not a pleasant feeling. He remembered shutting his eyes tightly at the sight of Karayan standing before him, looking more frightening than either of his siblings had. Gingka figured this was probably due to the single eye that had glimmered, with a purple iris that still glowed red. Obviously something had happened to the other eye, which had been entirely missing.

It was with a jolt not unlike that of an electric shock that Gingka became aware of what was happening. He opened his eyes, finding himself in a mixture of a dream and a nightmare. The bonds he had with both Pegasus twins seemed to still be open, but he could tell that the power of both was fading. A long look to his right soon identified the two winged horses, their wings neither folded nor spread, eyes closed, heads lowered in a limp, subconscious admission of defeat.

Gingka growled at the sight. "Come on, guys! Wake up!" He yelled, hoping that they could hear him. But there was no response.

Gingka decided to attempt reaching the two. Perhaps his touch could revive them, wake them up, so that he could have their help in getting away from the darkness spreading steadily closer from his left. Gingka turned his back on it and began to run, only for something to snake around his legs, causing him to fall roughly to the invisible ground. The redhead grunted and reflexively rolled over, forcing himself to face the danger that was apparently behind him. He found himself face to face with the very dragon that he had dreaded so much when he was younger, the one he had defeated to save Ryuga all those years ago.

"Karayan…" Gingka growled, recognizing the dark figure even though it had now taken the form of the dragon within it.

"Oh but of course." Karayan sneered as he coiled his long, snakelike body around Gingka tightly, preventing the redhead from escaping and reaching the two Pegasus beys that he so desperately needed help from. "I'm inside your mind now. You could not resist, and now I am going to destroy you."

Gingka growled. "I don't think so." He said firmly. "I beat you, remember?"

"Yes, I remember very well. All three of us do." Karayan snarled, drops of liquid, dark red flame dripping from his fangs onto Gingka's face and causing the redhead to shudder.

"Then you know how strong I can be when I need to." Gingka growled, trying to struggle against the coils that were holding him still, but to no effect.

"Oh, but last time you were fighting with control of your own mind. This time, you're fighting for it." Karayan chuckled, the sound sending shivers down Gingka's spine. "And this time, you don't have a bey to fight with. But this battle is not fought with beys. And I have had years of experience with absorbing people. Yet you have never had to fight this type of battle. Face it. The odds are strongly in my favor."

"I've faced odds like this before and still won." Gingka grunted. "The odds being in your favor means nothing."

"Oh, but I beg to differ." Karayan sneered, more dark flames dripping. "Because before, you were able to even out the odds because you had a bey or your friends on your side. But look over there," The dragon made a slight gesture with his head towards the two motionless Pegasi, "Neither one of the beys you have used can help you. Both of them are fading and powerless to stop Mao or myself. Nereza's draining poison is already running its course through the boy. It will not be long now before he is too weak to even move, and then she will simply kill him."

Gingka growled angrily. "Don't underestimate him."

"Oh but when he beat us he was free to move and was conscious, remember? And so were you." Karayan sneered.

Gingka growled, trying not to lose hope. He had to beat this. If he did not, who knew what would happen? But he had to admit that he was terrified. And alone. Just about everything that Karayan had pointed out so far was true. Gingka did not have any help from either one of the Pegasus twins. Kaminari was locked up elsewhere. Raiden was unconscious and his power was being drained from his body. His friends were waiting for him to return from rescuing Kaminari, and he did not know how long it would take them to figure out that he was missing, or even if they would realize it. If they did realize that something was wrong, then they would likely be too late to come save him and Raiden. Gingka shook violently as despair overcame him. He was painfully aware of the fact that Karayan's hovering face was gaining more and more of a smug, sadistic sneer on it as the dragon watched his prey begin to succumb to his own inability to do anything.

"Now you're getting the picture." Karayan purred darkly.

"Stop…" Gingka muttered, despite not really wanting to. He hated having to plead with enemies. It only gave them more satisfaction, after all, and the knowledge that pleading with them was the only thing he had left to fight with.

"Oh? Did I hear an admission of defeat? Pathetic." Karayan sneered, looking extremely pleased with this.

Gingka glared defiantly. "I will defeat you." He said in as form of a tone as he could muster. Granted, considering the current situation and the fact that both of his usual ways of defeating anyone were laying unconscious nearby and likely were already fully defeated, or at least rapidly heading towards a complete defeat that they would not be able to recover from.

This thought made Gingka's breath hitch in his throat unwillingly. He mentally cursed as he spotted Karayan's sadistic smirk grow slightly wider. Gingka was beginning to break under the pressure, and Karayan knew this. The redhead tried to stay calm, stubbornly refusing to give in any further. So what if he was being trapped by a dragon that wanted to kill him, slowly and with no mercy, while he had no hope of escape? Then again, Gingka reminded himself, maybe he did have a chance of escape. This was HIS mind, after all. Therefore, he should be able to control what happened here. This was not the test of a bey battle. This was a test of willpower. Amount of blading power did not mean much.

The question came down to one thing, Gingka realized. Was his desire to not succumb stronger than Karayan's desire to feed off of his mind? Even if he could not hold off the dark being indefinitely, he could at least stall for time, and probably lots of it. The question was, what tricks should he use to accomplish the task at hand?

Gingka decided to take a page from Tetsuya's book, so to speak. He had to admit that the crabby blader was quite the master at diversions, if one was not paying attention. He raised an eyebrow as if confusion and craned his neck, taking his eyes off of Karayan and looking at one spot far behind the dragon, repeatedly, as if there were something there. Soon enough, there indeed was something there. It was a stupid idea, Gingka thought, but it was something.

"What are you looking at?" Karayan demanded, clearly annoyed at the fact that his threat was now being ignored.

"Nothing." Gingka said quickly, as if he did not want the dragon to see whatever it was that was behind him.

Karayan growled, and, just as Gingka had expected, turned, only to see a giant hamburger just floating there randomly in the distance. Gingka smirked as the dragon paused and stared in utter confusion at the sight Gingka had created. The redhead then focused deeply on the burger, until it grew larger and larger and hit Karayan in the face, causing the dragon to recoil and lose part of his grip on Gingka before turning and snarling angrily at the redhead, tightening the coils.

Gingka grunted, wincing at this, but smirking.

"How DARE you try to distract me." Karayan snarled, more dark flames dripping onto Gingka's face and causing the redhead to flinch away at the heat.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Gingka grunted, suddenly looking up and widening his eyes. "Look ou-" He interrupted himself and imagined an enormous bottle of root beer smashing down on Karayan's head. Gingka closed his eyes and turned his head away as he and Karayan were both splashed with the fizzy beverage. Karayan let out an angered roar and fully uncoiled, releasing Gingka, who immediately put all of his mental resources into imagining all of the food he could come up with. His plan was working and he was not going to give up. He only hoped that Karayan would not realize that he was being distracted until it was too late.

As he slowly backed towards the two Pegasi floating limply a few hundred feet away from him, Gingka chuckled to himself, figuring that anyone who saw what he was doing would probably call him an idiot. Perhaps this idea was stupid. But hey, it was working, so Gingka figured that it could easily be argued that his distractionary attempts were a stroke of genius on his part. He merely had to stay calm. He knew that Lightning L-Drago had always fed off of rage and anger. Considering that Karayan was one-third of that bey, he figured that it was the same. But what happened if Karayan was the one who got angry? Gingka was half tempted to make the bey angrier and see if it would keep him further distracted, or if it would snap him to focus and cause him to end it before Gingka could do anything more.

Gingka glanced backwards. He had almost reached the horses he was trying to get to. Good. If he kept this up for just a little bit longer, perhaps he could wake one. But he needed a new idea. Karayan was beginning to simply dodge the food, and seemed to be realizing it was just a diversion. Gingka took a deep breath as an idea popped into his head. It was daring, but it might work. As a matter of fact, it might get Karayan out of his head completely, if Gingka could play it right. He glanced between Kaminari and Raiden for a moment before looking back at Karayan. For this idea to work, it would have to be pulled off flawlessly. Karayan would immediately notice if it was not.

Gingka took a deep breath and focused. The food slowly stopped flying and vanished. Before Karayan could think enough to locate Gingka and get back to trying to take him over, Gingka had imagined Dougal standing there.

"Brother." The image of the other triplet called out.

"What are you doing here?!" Karayan snarled. "This is my job, get out!"

"We have a problem." Dougal's image replied.

"Well then spill." Karayan snapped, looking ready to breathe fire at his brother in anger.

"Hagane's comrades are on their way here. They've been spotted and Nemesis wants us to go defeat them."

Karayan froze. "Who?"

Gingka's eyes widened as he realized his mistake. His lapse in concentration caused the illusionary Dougal to flicker and disappear as Karayan whirled towards him, snarling.

"You. That was quite clever, I'll admit. But there will be no more distractions." He snarled, voice growing to an angered roar as he spoke.

"So you think." Gingka said, forcing himself to stay calm. His forgetfulness of Nemesis's other name may have just cost him whatever other time he could have been able to buy, he knew. He should have been more careful. How could he have forgotten that Dougal and the other beys did not refer to Nemesis as Nemesis, but by his real name, Mao? That was obviously the thing that had tipped Karayan off as to who he was really talking to.

Gingka made a break for it and attempted to reach the two Pegasus beys. He stretched out a hand, nearly managing to brush his fingertips against Kaminari's nose, but just before he did, Karayan managed to coil around him once more, this time tighter than before. Gingka grunted, trying to struggle against the scaly coils.

"Give up." Karayan snarled, his jaws now uncomfortably close to Gingka's face. "I have half a mind to just kill you now for that trick."

"This is my mind. I control it." Gingka snapped back, mentally yelling at himself to wake up.

"Do you now? Not for long." Karayan snarled as everything began to grow darker and darker. Gingka could not tell whether it was from the bey taking over or from the fact that the tension in Karayan's coils was currently making it quite hard to breathe.

"We'll… See about that…" Gingka grunted, pushing outwards with his arms and legs as much as he could, even though it felt like he was accomplishing nothing.

"I will crush you this time." Karayan snarled, his single eye glowing a brighter red.

"I… Said… Get OUT." Gingka snapped, suddenly shoving Karayan off of him in a sudden burst of mental strength.

The next thing Gingka knew, he was waking up with a gasp, panting heavily and groaning faintly as he opened his eyes, finding that he was still restrained in an upright position, his wrists and ankles, as well as his waist, cuffed to a slanted wall.

"You…" Karayan snarled, slowly getting up from the floor, his red eye pulsating angrily as his long claws scraped against the ground.

Gingka panted, but looked smug. "I told you…" He said softly. "My mind… You can't take it over…"

"We'll see about that." Karayan spat, straightening his tattered clothing (an action which Gingka thought was rather purposeless, considering that the dragonoid was not exactly wearing the nicest of clothing) and walking back towards Gingka in a stalking motion.

"You said that and I proved you wrong already." Gingka said. "Just give up. I don't need a bey to resist you."

Karayan let out a derisive snort, a bit of smoke rising from his nostrils. "We'll see about that, The fact is, you cannot harm me. You're just a human. Only another bey can harm me."

"I don't need to kill you to stop you." Gingka said. "I just need to hold you off either until you give up or until someone who can kill you comes along."

"You think that ANYONE is going to come rescue you? They don't even know you're here, and even if they did, Mao is not exactly going to just let anyone walk in and rescue you. If they even try we will simply subject them to the same fate as everyone else." Karayan growled, pacing around Gingka.

"You underestimate my friends." Gingka said. "They can and will defeat you. And Mao. It won't matter what you throw at them."

"I could just rip out your throat right now and leave you to die." Karayan growled. "Don't tempt me to do so."

"But then you wouldn't get to take over my mind." Gingka pointed out. "If you kill me before you do so, then my mind will be lost to you. So really, you don't want to do that."

"You don't tell me what to do." Karayan spat flames at Gingka's feet, nearly causing the redhead to flinch.

Gingka took a deep breath as the half-dragon figure approached. He did not want to let Karayan into his mind again. He needed to stay conscious to stay on top. Unfortunately that would likely be more difficult than shoving the bey out had been. For one thing, he could not move, aside from turning his head, and for another, he knew that his body was much more fragile than Karayan's. The dragonoid had gotten him unconscious once. It would not take much to do it again, and there were a number of ways it could be done.

Gingka gritted his teeth and growled, narrowing his eyes in determination. There was only one thing he could really do. He knew that Karayan was intending to knock him unconscious again. It was only logical. It would be harder for him to resist if he were unconscious. The lack of any sort of syringe or object in Karayan's hand betrayed the fact that the dragon was likely planning to simply choke him to unconsciousness. Gingka knew that he was not going to be able to resist that.

The redhead began to panic slightly as his guess proved to be correct, Karayan closing the distance between them and raising one clawed hand up towards Gingka's throat. Which meant that he only had one real chance at this if he was to do it while conscious. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a moment before tilting his head back slightly.

"Pegasus!" He shouted at the tops of his lungs, the word stifled at the end by a strangled cry as Karayan snarled and closed his claws over Gingka's neck. It only took a few seconds before Gingka ceased to struggle and fell limp once more. Little did either of the two know that, within Gingka's mind, the ear of one horse twitched slightly at the call.


	12. Escape

Gingka gasped slowly for breath. He knew that he was unconscious again, or, at least he figured he was. His vision was too hazy from lack of oxygen to tell. The redhead groaned faintly, feeling as if he were on fire. Considering that he was fighting a dragon, he would not have been surprised if that were the case.

"You're too weak." Karayan's voice taunted. Gingka could not tell where the dragon was speaking from.

"No… I… You can't… Win…" Gingka whispered weakly, stubbornly trying to fight back. He gasped softly as the coils around his body tightened further, making it even harder to breathe than it already was.

"I'm already winning, fool." Karayan snarled. "You're finished."

"Not… Yet…" Gingka grunted, trying to will himself back to consciousness, but every time he got close to succeeding, he felt more pressure on his throat and ribcage that forced him back under in a continuous cycle. He knew that he must not lose this. Karayan seemed to have found a way to keep him drifting in a section of his consciousness that made his mind too clouded for him to really resist.

Gingka did know one thing for sure now. He hated this feeling. His resolve and body were being weakened bit by bit and the fear of dying combined with the fear of what could happen if he were absorbed by Karayan were nearly causing him to panic.

"Pegasus… Please…" He reached out with his thoughts, desperately wanting to feel the strength of even one of the two horses he had a connection to. It was all he had left to grasp onto to maintain any sort of sanity.

After a while, Gingka began to wonder how long he had been drifting in his weird state of semi-consciousness. He had lost all track and sense of time passing. For all he knew, it could have been years. Of course, he figured that it had not been that long, since it surely would not take Karayan that long to take over someone. He should have been dead by now if it had been years. But did it really matter how long? He was tired. The thought of just giving up was beginning to enter his mind, a thought that scared him even more. He could not give up. He had never given up before. Especially not when the consequences of defeat were as strong as they were now.

Gingka's lungs were burning from lack of air, he noticed, as he slipped back into consciousness just enough to feel what was happening to his body. He let out yet another weak groan, blissfully unaware of the dragon that had coiled around his body with its fangs dripping red flames practically in his face.

"Pathetic. All of that bravado has amounted to nothing." Karayan chuckled darkly, his single eye focused on the pale, weakly gasping blader that he was encasing in his tightened coils.

"I'm surprised that you had to actually weaken his body to allow yourself better access to his mind." Nereza taunted from behind Gingka, where she was working on draining Raiden's power bit by bit, thoroughly enjoying the way the humanoid's body arched slightly whenever she increased the rate of the power drain.

"Shut up." Karayan snapped. "You have your own project to work on."

"Oh, I know." Nereza chuckled, trailing one finger up Raiden's throat and to his chin, tilting his head back slightly as she kept her other hand directly over his heart, blue flames changing to purple as they flowed from him to her.

"You must have him quite sedated if he didn't hear his former master's call for help a minute ago." Karayan commented wryly.

"Oh I do. I figured that it wouldn't do to have him and his former master knowing that the other was so close by. Although this conversation will tell at least one of them that if he's conscious." Nereza raised an eyebrow at her brother.

"He is unable to breathe enough to become conscious." Karayan sneered. "We both have our methods."

"So we do." Nereza mused. "You seem to like it when they fight back a little bit."

"It makes it so much less boring." Karayan sighed, flicking the tip of his tail around to a different position. "Perhaps you should try it."

"I get quite the amount of reaction from their subconscious movements, thank you very much. While you seem to prefer them nearly winning, I prefer complete hopelessness as they feel themselves growing weaker until they simply die from it, without ever really knowing what is happening. Such a poetic way to die."

Karayan snorted and rolled his single eye. "If you say so. I enjoy slowly showing them that I am the stronger being. Humans are so interesting that way. I have had plenty of practice breaking them."

"Is that so?" Nereza said, chuckling darkly. She was beginning to feel Raiden's struggles weakening beneath her iron fist. She half wished she could listen to what he was thinking. Undoubtedly, it would be quite entertaining.

"I have to wake up… I'm in trouble if I don't…" Raiden's subconscious mind was telling him, repeatedly. All he could hear were faint voices, but he could feel an immense amount of fear that was only growing larger and larger as time went on. And he felt weak. Very weak. Weaker than he had ever felt, almost, and that was saying something, considering that he had been barely able to lift his head up for months following his disappearance from Earth after Battle Bladers.

Raiden thought suddenly that he needed to get to Gingka. He had not been able to fight back when captured but perhaps he should have tried. But he had really been too shocked at seeing Dougal to make an attempt. Now that he thought about it, defeating one third of the triplets would have made the rest of the job a whole lot easier. Now he was clearly getting his power stolen from him by Nereza's forbidden powers, and from what he knew, Gingka was likely fighting a losing battle against Karayan.

"We've failed then…?" Raiden thought, staring into his own subconscious mind at a bright sky that was growing steadily darker. He had a sudden desire to fly again. He did not want to give up. But he knew that something was forcing him to stay unconscious. Whatever substance he was being forced to continuously inhale was making him feel quite peaceful. He decided that he did not like this. He was Pegasus, after all. He was supposed to be wild, running freely wherever he wished. Not laying flat on his back in the grassy meadow of his own mind.

"I've gotta fight something…" Raiden muttered, halfheartedly. He could not deny the fact that he was really quite comfortable and faced with an overwhelming feeling of apathy towards what was going on.

Raiden scowled as he realized just how lazy he was being. Now that he had realized it, he was quite done being lazy. He chose to stand, but found that his body felt very heavy. A low growl of annoyance escaped him at this. Just how long had he been simply letting Nereza drain his power? Enough was enough. He knew for a fact that Gingka was fighting. It was time for him to do the same, conscious or unconscious.

"Alright, that's enough." He whinnied as he managed to get to his feet, transforming to his beast form and tossing his head. "I want whatever this thing you're keeping me under with off, and I want it off NOW." Raiden stomped with one hoof for emphasis.

Nereza gasped suddenly as the flow of fire between her and Raiden stopped.

"Got a problem over there?" Karayan asked lazily.

"Impossible." Nereza snarled. "He's fighting back. He shouldn't be able to fight back at all but he's halted my drain. I'll have to focus more on it." She began to place her other hand on Raiden's chest, only to be forced to leap back by a blazing, golden arrow that embedded itself in the back of the iron bed that Gingka was restrained to, grazing against Karayan's scales and causing the dragon to hiss and loosen his coils slightly in reaction to the sudden pain.

"How did you escape?!" Nereza snarled, glaring at the golden-haired archer she spotted standing in the doorway.

"You and your brother aren't too bright." Thorgisl replied, stringing another arrow to his bow as he stepped into the room slowly. "Make one move to attack me, either of you, and I'll kill you where you stand."

"Would you really do that?" Nereza drawled. "I can just drain your power too, you know. It's not as fun as draining power from someone who's helpless like your little friend here, but it's still quite entertaining."

Thorgisl rolled his eyes. "Oh please. As if I came alone, for one thing, and for another… I am MUCH stronger than I was all those years ago when Raiden defeated you. But I'm not the one you really need to be worrying about."

"If you try to make one move to rescue either of your buddies here, we will kill them." Karayan snarled, ready to breathe red flames in an instant. "It would only take one bite to the throat or chest to end this one, easily."

"Those will be famous last words." Another voice said before a rather lithe looking figure stepped into view, his hair bushy, bright green, and rather majestic.

"Oh, so you found your little lion friend. Glad you could join us after what Mao did to you, Katsutoshi. Do you really think that a kitty cat can scare a dragon?" Nereza said, beginning to change forms as she hovered over Raiden, ready to drain the remainder of the unconscious bey's power in an instant.

"You're scared of him. Is that why you knocked him out before draining his power? Pathetic." Katsutoshi rolled his eyes. "Also, do not try to insult me. You can no longer defeat me. Especially not with your third sibling already knocked out for the count."

Nereza snarled, her fangs beginning to drip the same dark red flames that were pouring from her brother's fangs. Thorgisl and Katsutoshi stepped into the room and towards the sides.

"Stop moving. We will kill them before you can even reach us." Nereza growled, one claw now holding a knife to Raiden's throat.

"It's not us you need to be worrying about, really." Katsutoshi said calmly, one hand resting on the hilt of a sword that was slung at his side.

"Moreso the fact that Orion has already escaped and it off to tell our comrades about what's happening here. Also to tell them that we're on our way back with everyone he intended to rescue plus him." Thorgisl said, aiming his arrow at Nereza's hand, ready to shoot the knife right out of it should she attempt to drive it into Raiden's neck to kill him.

"You're really that confident you can beat us before we can kill one or both of them?" Karayan said, tightening his coils and forcing a faint, strangled cry out of Gingka.

Time seemed to slow down after that, as Thorgisl's arrow flew from his bow, striking Nereza's hand squarely and forcing the dragon girl to recoil, dropping the knife, which severed the tube that was connecting the mask on Raiden's face to the source of the substance that was keeping the blue-haired bey unconscious. A sword flashed at the same moment, a burst of raw power forcing Karayan to not only uncoil, but to return to humanoid form as well. Katsutoshi immediately drew his sword and used it to cut through Raiden's shackles, freeing him.

"You… DARE… hurt not only my brother… But my partner as well…?" An angered female voice throbbing with more power than the two dragons had expected broke the shocked silence in the room as Karayan and Nereza stared in shock, one pressing his back to the wall and snarling angrily, the other finding herself laying on the ground with a sword pointed at her heart, Katsutoshi glaring down at her and daring her with his eyes to even breathe harder than he would allow.

"You." Karayan snarled angrily, pacing along the wall but not daring to approach the armored female figure who had balanced herself carefully on the edge of the iron slab just above Gingka's head. Her blue eyes pulsated and glowed with both the power that she had been born with and the power that had been given to her that one fateful night when the Star Fragment had arrived on Earth.

"Do I look… Locked up… To you?" Kaminari growled, casually flipping her twin katanas back and forth in her hands, from a back-handed grip to a normal grip, repeatedly, to make her point clear: Karayan was not to even try approaching Gingka.

Karayan snarled, not willing to openly admit his fear, but admitting it nonetheless by his lack of an attempt at attacking the katana-wielding woman standing guard over her own blader.

"Get out of my sight, now. While I still have reservations about killing you." Kaminari growled, putting on the most powerful show she could.

"That goes for you too." Katsutoshi said, stepping around Nereza and gesturing towards the door with his sword.

Soon enough, the two dragons had fled, snarling threats as they went.

"It won't take them very long to report this to Mao." Thorgisl said. "We'd better get moving."

"Agreed. There will be a hunt out for us in an instant once he finds out." Katsutoshi said, sheathing his sword as Kaminari dropped lightly down off the slab, dropping to one knee and panting as she half-leaned against the cold iron wall.

"Is he alright?" Thorgisl asked as he slid an arm under Raiden's shoulders and sat the bluenette up.

"Mostly." Kaminari sighed, grunting as she sliced upwards with one sword before slowly moving to the other side and cutting the remaining bonds. Gingka, still gasping for breath from his recent ordeal, slid to the floor the moment he was free.

"I'm half surprised you were able to muster enough energy to appear as if you were actually at full strength." Katsutoshi grunted as he began tapping Raiden's cheeks and trying to get the other winged horse to wake.

"Nngh… Kat, cut that out… It's not time to play around here…" Raiden grumbled in a groggy tone as the sedative he had been under began to wear off.

Katsutoshi gained an angered tick mark on his head. "Quit calling me that!" He snapped.

Raiden smirked slowly and patted the lion bey on the head. "Good kitty…" He muttered before his head flopped to the side and he began snoring.

"I swear, if you weren't half-dead right now…" Katsutoshi grumbled, resisting the urge to punch Raiden in the stomach.

"Oi, Raiden. Not nap time right now." Thorgisl said, lightly tapping his old friend's cheeks again.

Raiden jerked awake abruptly, blinking rapidly before looking around. "... Hey I didn't think that would work. Cool." He said before noticing Katsutoshi glaring at him. "Oh… I had help… Wait how are you not locked up?"

"Long story short, Dougal didn't notice I was free from my restraints." Thorgisl said. "I freed Kat and Orion and, while Orion went off to tell the others that we were on our way, Kat and I rescued your sister and the three of us came here."

"Oh." Raiden said, sliding his legs off the table he had been laying on and standing, rather unsteadily, before stretching. "That's a relief. You alright, sis?"

"I"m fine." Kaminari said softly, the glow in her eyes flickering slightly as she slowly reached out with one gloved hand and touched her blader's cheek before sliding her hand behind his head and maneuvering him into a half-sitting position against her as she leaned against the iron slab he had been chained to.

Gingka let out a faint groan, his gasping having already subsided into mere heavy breathing as color began to return to his face.

"I heard you, Gingka…" Kaminari whispered softly, positioning him so that he would be at least fairly comfortable, with his head half-cradled between the shoulder and breastplate of her armor. "I heard you calling me…"

Gingka shuddered slightly. He had immediately noticed when the constriction of his body had ceased, in one of his semi-conscious moments. He had slipped nearly back to full unconsciousness from relief just afterwards, putting all of his strength into breathing as it returned. When he finally opened his eyes, he was not sure at first whether or not he was dreaming. But the fact that it was the face of a woman and not the face of a horse that he was staring at soon made him realize that he was actually conscious.

"Y'know…" He muttered weakly, still panting softly and groaning at the soreness in his throat, "This rescue... was supposed to go the other way around…"

"You still got me out." She muttered. "By freeing Thorgisl and then shouting for me."

"Well m'glad you were able to get here…" Gingka muttered hoarsely before coughing.

"We need to get out of here." Kaminari informed. "Can you stand?"

"I can try…" Gingka muttered, wincing as he tried to sit up on his own.

"Oh come on, we don't have time for this." Katsutoshi grumbled, walking over and half-yanking both blader and bey to their feet by the backs of their clothing.

Gingka looked back lazily. "Lemme guess… Leone…" He muttered.

"Just shut up and start walking." Katsutoshi grumbled, giving the two a light shove.

"I can help you stand if you need it." Kaminari offered, her voice subsiding to a soft whinnying sound that was quite welcome to Gingka's ears.

"When you're… Also weakened from capture? Suuure…" Gingka grumbled, stumbling slightly.

"Easy there. I'm stronger than you are, idiot." Kaminari retorted, putting one arm around him to steady him.

"Hmm… Mutual support then." Gingka decided, putting one of his arms around her as well. "Four legs better than two, right?"

Kaminari let out a snort and rolled her eyes, running the fingers of her free hand through her wild light blue hair.

"I've got enough power back to be able to carry people." Raiden called. "Or at least to fly."

"You said otherwise earlier." Gingka reminded him. "You just fly yourself."

"Thorgisl and I will do any carrying that needs to be done. Now I vote for not using the doors, because it's faster." Katsutoshi said, slashing through the wall before kicking it open in a gust of wind to reveal the outside.

"We'd better leave. I can already hear Mao's angry roars. He'll be on his way soon." Kaminari said, her wings forming and spreading behind her as she used them to help herself and Gingka balanced.

Katsutoshi dropped to all fours and turned into the large green lion that was more familiar to Gingka in an instant.

"Then we'd better be heading off." He growled. "So get on, and there will be no complaints from anyone."

"You will tell nobody of this." Kaminari said firmly as she helped Gingka onto the lion's back before climbing on behind him.

"Lean forwards and hold onto my mane, Hagane. It will be easier to run that way." Katsutoshi snarled, lowering his head and preparing to dart off at full speed while Thorgisl turned into his own centaur beast and helped Raiden up onto his back.

"Right…" Gingka yawned, his brain still fuzzy from lack of oxygen as he leaned forwards and buried his face in the soft mane of the lion, shifting slightly as he felt Kaminari lean forwards as well, sliding her armored arms around him and simultaneously gripping onto the long mane.

"We're ready, Kat. Get us out of here." she nickered, closing her eyes and resting her head against Gingka's back as the lion darted off and away from the prison at full speed.

Only the enraged roaring of Mao and the dragon triplets who served him could be heard as Gingka and the others made their escape from the prison.


	13. Rest

When Gingka woke up, the first thing he noticed was that he was quite pleasantly warm and comfortable. It was rather quiet, something he was also rather glad for. He had half-expected to wake up to Karayan snarling in his face again, but this expectation proved to be incorrect. The redhead shifted positions slightly, groaning and putting one arm around his ribs, which he found to be quite sore from all of the pressure they had taken earlier. He would not have been surprised if a few of them were broken. It did hurt a bit to breathe, but at least he could breathe.

Gingka slowly stretched his body out, enjoying the feeling of being able to move freely again. However, his arms quickly came in contact with a soft, feathered surface. The redhead paused and blinked sleep away from his eyes, only to realize that the reason for the warmth around him was that he was tucked underneath a large blue wing that could only belong to one of the Pegasus twins. The question was, which one?

Gingka looked up, searching with his eyes for the head of the horse he was leaned against. He followed the length of the neck down and around, finding that the winged horse had tucked its head under its wing.

"Hmm…" He mused thoughtfully, soon spotting the second winged horse only a couple of feet away, head also tucked underneath wing.

"... You just HAD to be twins… I have no clue which of you is which without her armor on." Gingka chuckled softly, reaching up and stroking the neck of the one he was tucked under the wing of. The horse twitched slightly before pulling its head out from under its wing and looking at him quietly.

"I'm fine…" Gingka told it, chuckling and rubbing his hand firmly down the long nose as he was nudged gently in a questioning manner. "Absolutely no clue which one of you is which though."

"Raiden's over there." Kaminari nickered, gesturing with her nose.

"Noted." Gingka replied softly, chuckling under his breath as he leaned his head back, resting it against the neck of the winged horse and sighing softly.

"You're still sore." She stated matter-of-factly.

"Yeah. A bit. Getting nearly squeezed to death will do that." Gingka muttered, coughing slightly.

"Easy on the speaking there." Kaminari whinnied softly, keeping the redhead from falling forwards by pressing her long nose against him to support him. "Your throat is probably damaged."

"No.. kidding…" Gingka muttered wearily, feeling tired once more. He was getting the precise same feeling from both Kaminari and Raiden. It was not surprising that this was the case, considering that she had been locked up for quite some time, Raiden had been knocked out cold and had his power drained from him, and Gingka had been nearly killed.

"Is he awake yet?!"

"Why can't we see him?!"

The startled, almost frantic voices of Zero and Benkei, as well as some of the others, echoed from nearby. Obviously the group was in a separate cavern than Gingka and the Pegasi were, likely to give them a chance to rest.

"Calm down! I told you, he and both Pegasi need to rest quietly so that they can recover." Tatsuhime's stern voice rang out. Undoubtedly the dragon woman was blocking Gingka's friends from bursting in.

"But he's our friend! They all are! We've gotta see them to make sure they're alright!" Zero protested.

"Yeah, what he said!" Ren said.

"You have not even met Kaminari yet." Tatsuhime said.

"... Who?"

Gingka chuckled under his breath as he heard the confusion in the younger bladers' voices. He inhaled deeply and tilted his head back towards the opening in the rock from which his friends' voices were echoing.

"Samurai… Pegasus…" He called in as loud of a tone he could muster, mentally growling at how weak he sounded and how badly his voice had cracked while he spoke. He supposed it was a side effect of being choked.

"Hey! I said you could not- Ah, whatever." Tatsuhime growled as she was, surprisingly, overpowered and shoved out of the way by a mixed group of bladers and beys.

"Gingka! Are you alright?! We were so worried!" Benkei exclaimed as he ran up to the redhead still comfortably tucked underneath one of Kaminari's large wings.

"Katsutoshi and Thorgisl told us what had happened when they came to pick us up from where we were." Shinobu explained.

Gingka chuckled under his breath faintly, shifting his position slightly to relieve some of the soreness.

"Bit beat up, but… I'm fine." He muttered softly, deciding that it was best not to put too much strain on his voice.

"You sound and look terrible." Zero informed, bluntly.

"Zero!" Shinobu and Ren scolded.

"What? He does!" Zero said, worry written across his face.

Gingka chuckled again, coughing wearily before reaching up to pet the quiet horse he was leaning against. "If how I feel is any indicator, then I suppose so…" He said hoarsely.

"You should probably not speak too much." Benkei said. "You sound like you're losing your voice."

"Well they did say he was getting choked." Kite pointed out. "So I'm not surprised."

"I'll be fine guys." Gingka said. "Although water would be rather nice at the moment… I assume that the silent group behind you guys is your beys…"

"Oh, yeah! We did manage to find them all." Zero chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head and grinning awkwardly as he glanced back at Ifrit, who rolled her eyes at him.

Gingka nodded in satisfaction. "Good…" He muttered wearily, feeling more tired than he had a moment ago.

"Wait. There are two Pegasi here now." Eight blinked. "So one of them is Raiden and the other one is… was it Kaminari?"

Gingka nodded and pointed up at the winged horse he was leaning against. "Kaminari," He directed his finger towards the other horse laying a few feet away, "Raiden."

Kaminari tossed her head in greeting before turning her head and nudging Gingka sideways. "You need to sleep more." She grunted, trying to make him lie down with her nose.

"But I'm not-" Gingka began to protest.

"Liar. I can read your mind like a book. You were literally just thinking about how tired you were." Kaminari scolded her blader, giving him a slightly harder nudge with her long nose.

Gingka opened his mouth to reply before snapping it shut and half pouting, grumbling something under his breath. A sly, smug smirk spread across the blue lips of the horse the redhead was leaning against.

"No, I'm not your mother. But you're forcing me to act like I am."

Gingka looked up and glared, opening his mouth to speak again, but Kaminari immediately interrupted him, the smug look on her face growing more and more apparent.

"Why should I be quiet? And don't start thinking about going to sit next to Raiden. You're still too weak to stand. No I'm not going to let you try to prove me wrong either."

Gingka crossed his arms and simply pouted at this, looking both embarrassed and quite annoyed at the fact that Kaminari had just repeated all of his comebacks for him out loud. Zero and the others were all on the floor laughing hysterically at the rather one-sided exchange. Even Kaminari let out an amused snort, shifting her body slightly and stretching her wings out before folding one firmly over Gingka again, encouraging him mentally to rest for the time being.

"We'll leave you to rest then." Benkei yawned, shifting his grip on the child sleeping on his back.

"Nah… Stick around and join us…" Gingka muttered, slowly shifting to the side and leaning against Kaminari's neck as the horse laid her head slowly down on the ground, so that Gingka's head was pillowed in her wild mane and the upper half of his body cradled comfortably in the curve of her neck.

Zero and the others glanced at each other.

"Well it has been a long day." Benkei said. "So we may as well relax for a bit."

"We might not get to later, after all." Shinobu said.

"Mao has been alerted to the fact that we're here." Raiden said suddenly, lifting his head and getting his legs underneath him before standing, his entire body trembling from weakness.

"Lie back down, brother." Kaminari said firmly without lifting her head. "You are just as weak if not more so than anyone else in here."

"Relaax…" Raiden drawled as he walked over to his sister in a slow and shaky manner before tucking his legs back underneath himself and laying down back-to-back with her, their wings folding together against each other.

Zero yawned, then yelped in surprise as he was lifted into the air and placed next to Shinobu, laying against Salamander's side as the bey transformed into the giant amphibian that was her beast form. Ifrit, in the form of the flaming warrior that Zero was more familiar with, smirked and sat down just next to the head of the lizard-like creature before leaning over against its head and closing her eyes.

"I suppose we are all going to go beast then. Except for those of us that are already asleep." Katsutoshi grumbled, dropping to all fours as he changed into a lion before walking in a circle around himself and laying down to sleep.

"Evidently so." Thorgisl yawned and simply laid down, wrapping his cloak around himself and drifting off to sleep.

"They're all a bunch of idiots, aren't they?" Ryuga grumbled as he watched from the gap in the rock that formed a sort of doorway into the cavern that the group was all drifting to sleep in.

"They are. Yet you, rather surprisingly, have changed your opinion about them now since the last time you saw them." Tatsuhime pointed out, putting her one hand on her blader's shoulder as she stood slightly behind him.

Ryuga huffed and turned away from the doorway, stalking over to a section of the rock wall that had been carved out to make a seat. "Perhaps."

"Everyone has changed. Including you. You and I may hide it, but I think we are in agreement." Tatsuhime said as she watched him with her calm, reddish-orange eyes.

"Mmhmm. I wanted a chance to get back at that idiot anyway." Ryuga grumbled, his golden eyes blazing.

"We both do." Tatsuhime said, stepping over slowly and taking a seat near her blader. "But I think that we can both agree that we have learned from the last time we fought him."

As much as I hate to admit that I lost." Ryuga growled, examining a few scars on his arms that had resulted from the last incident with Nemesis.

Tatsuhime fingered a coiled whip that hung from her belt. "That goes for both of us." She said calmly. "But this time we will not fight alone. And we will defeat him."

Ryuga nodded firmly. "That idiot needs to learn his place."

"And believe me… He will." Tatsuhime's eyes pulsated slightly and glowed brilliantly.

"Shall we take a flight around to find the others?" Ryuga chuckled softly, seeing the look in his bey's eyes, the blazing fire within the dragon that showed that she was ready to rage across the land with the power that had been hers since birth.

"It may not be wise to leave them unguarded, or to be in the open while Mao rages." Tatsuhime said.

"Perhaps not." Ryuga said, standing. "But you are barely able to sit still, and the feeling is contagious. Surely you cannot object to some fast racing around these caverns. After all, they were made for flight practice, were they not?"

Tatsuhime chuckled and began to shift forms. "If you are up for the speed. You fell off last time when I took that tight turn."

Ryuga scowled at this. "Not this time." he growled. "I will not fall off this time."

"Is that a challenge?" Tatsuhime chuckled, her voice deepening into a roar as her body thickened and lengthened into the snake-like dragon that she truly was beneath her human form.

"If you wish to take it as one." Ryuga grumbled, crossing his arms and waiting for her to finish shifting forms.

"You know that you cannot win these challenges. I always find a way to throw you off." Tatsuhime said, lowering her head so that Ryuga could climb on just behind her horns, among the soft fur that crowned her head.

"We'll see about that, this time." Ryuga grunted as he swung one leg over the scaly neck and carefully seated himself, digging his fingers into her fur and horns and gripping with a white-knuckled grasp, also gripping with his legs as the dragon lifted her head off the ground and began to slither slowly towards the largest cavern entrance.

A powerful roar echoed through the caverns, waking up a few of the sleeping bladers and beys. Thorgisl and Katsutoshi just glanced at each other and smirked faintly in amusement, knowing that the dragon bey was simply exerting her power and getting as fired up as some of them were to take down Mao once and for all.

Ryuga clung tightly to the back of his dragon, a near-crazed grin on his face as the speed with which the dragon was flying blew his hair back wildly, causing the white cape he was wearing to flap in the air almost violently, brushing from time to time against the rigid reddish scales that were gleaming in the dim lighting from the red-hot glow of the caverns. His eyes reflected the same fiery light, gleaming in excitement with the adrenaline rush that always came from riding a dragon.

Ryuga had always loved a good challenge, had always called himself the Dragon Emperor, a nickname that had stuck to him in the minds of other people as well. But nothing he had experienced in his life before Nemesis could quite compare to riding an actual dragon, whether through the caverns of a volcano or the open skies of a planet that most human beings did not know existed.

Ryuga tightened his grip, feeling the adrenaline rising in his body as Tatsuhime began whipping her coils around several pillars at the center of the volcano, completing tight turns and smashing through a few lava spurts, although Ryuga knew that she would never dare do so if there was a chance of him being seriously harmed. A few burns he could deal with. He was the dragon emperor, after all. Fire did not bother him in the slightest. He chose to not let it bother him. After all, it did not bother the born ruler of the dragons upon whose back he was currently sitting. Tatsuhime had earned her place, despite missing an entire limb.

"I am surprised. You have held on so far. Normally by now I would have had to catch you to keep you from falling into the lava." Tatsuhime said as she paused her flight to allow both Ryuga and herself to catch their breaths.

Ryuga chuckled deeply and reached up with his arm, swiping a layer of sweat off his brow. "I did tell you that I was going to stay on this time."

"Do not get too smug. I still have energy left to burn off." Tatsuhime let out a low snarl.

"And I still have strength in my body, as usual."

"'As usual' has not helped you before. I will throw you off."

"This time, Empress, you will tire out before I fall off." Ryuga growled, tightening his grip slightly to indicate that he was quite ready to continue.

"We shall see, human." Tatsuhime roared, the sound shaking the entire volcano and causing a partial earthquake that aggravated the lava that was spurting from below.

Ryuga grinned in excitement and leaned forwards as the dragon reared her head back for an instant before plunging downwards and beginning anew her reckless, wild charge. Their game continued for hours on end, until, eventually, both Emperor and Empress returned to the cave from which they had initiated their wild charge, finding their comrades, no, their friends, waiting for them inside, ready to begin the battle that would determine the fate of both of their worlds.


	14. Charge

"I hope we're all ready." Gingka yawned as he walked out of the cavern, finding everyone else awake and talking softly amongst themselves.

"We were just talking about that." Benkei said. "We still need to find the rest of the Legendary Beys, somehow."

"And without Mao finding us first." Ryuga said.

"So, another one of these race against time things." Gingka said, reaching up and patting the neck of Kaminari as the winged horse came up next to him.

"Now that we have mostly recovered and have more help, it will not be as hard as before." Kaminari said. "We simply must gather the others, correct? I know where a few of them are either hiding or locked up. Mao wanted to keep us mostly separate."

"So that we could not mount an assault against him that he knows he would lose." Tatsuhime said. "Because he knows he is weaker than we are. I must admit that he is smart."

Gingka nodded in agreement. "I think we can all agree that. But he's missing something we've all got." Gingka spoke up, leaning against the wall.

"And that is?" Ryuga raised an eyebrow.

"Quite simply, each other." Raiden yawned as he slipped past his sister, both Pegasi transforming to human form.

"Okay, now I can really see the twin thing." Zero said, laughing at the two humanoids with their wild light blue hair and glowing blue eyes.

"You couldn't before when, oh, I don't know, we couldn't tell the two apart?!" Ren exclaimed.

"Well, yeah, I could, but horses are similar in the first place, so…" Zero scratched the back of his head awkwardly and chuckled.

"So are people." Kite pointed out.

Gingka chuckled and glanced between the two." Nah. They're much more different than they look. And I should know, I've been connected to both of them… And would you two QUIT having a mental argument?! I can hear you too you know!" He exclaimed as he turned to look at the two behind him.

Kaminari and Raiden grinned sheepishly, Raiden scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"I… Forgot about that…" The male admitted.

Kaminari rolled her eyes and smacked Raiden's head with one wing. "Idiots."

"But there's only one of me." Raiden said confusedly, while Gingka just glared at his bey.

"As Gingka has already figured out, I was referring to both of you." Kaminari chuckled.

"What did I even do?!" Gingka exclaimed.

"At this precise moment, nothing. You've always been an idiot." Kaminari stated bluntly.

Gingka animefell. "Not nice!" He whined.

Zero and the others laughed at the redhead, while Tatsuhime and Ryuga merely allowed faint smirks of amusement to cross their faces.

"So what is the plan?" Bull piped up from his position atop one of Benkei's shoulders.

Gingka paused and stared at the tiny child. "... No way." He looked amused.

Benkei glared at him. "Shut up. I know what you're thinking and hey, Bull's cuter than any of your beys!"

Tatsuhime promptly facepalmed. "Can we PLEASE stay on topic and get to the matter at hand?" She snarled, catching everyone's attention once more.

"Right. Sorry." Gingka said, although a smirk from him and sweatdropping from Kaminari and Raiden proved that the redhead had indeed failed to drop the topic of Bull's small size.

"We should avoid completely splitting up like we did before." Tatsuhime said. "For Raiden and Gingka, that proved to be near-disastrous."

"I can agree with that idea." Gingka grumbled. "Getting choked and squeezed half to death is NOT something that was on my bucket list."

"Blader-and-bey pairs are more powerful than bladers or beys alone." Kaminari said. "And, ideally, battling can work here much the same way as it does on Earth, the way the bladers are used to it working. The difference is, they can directly see our actual movements."

"Cool." Zero spoke up.

"That could potentially be a problem, but at the same time, it could turn out to be enormously to our advantage." Raiden said.

"The advantage Mao had over us when he first broke out is that he absorbed his blader seven years ago just before he was defeated." Katsutoshi said. "It is surprising how differently the statistics work out when a blader is involved in the process of a battle."

Gingka and the other bladers raised an eyebrow at the lion at this, wondering if they were really that essential for a victory.

"That is why I sent Raiden to get them." Kaminari said. "Because of that very fact."

"Wow. So even in your world, having the blader commanding makes a big difference." Zero said.

"Well, that makes me feel actually important in this whole deal other than just rescuing and gathering you guys." Benkei laughed.

"I know, right?" Gingka chuckled. "Especially after I technically failed to do so."

"That depends on your point of view." Thorgisl said, "Technically, you and Raiden did set off the chain reaction that allowed Kaminari, and then you, to be freed. You unchained me, and Dougal did not notice that I was free. Once you guys were taken away, I was able to escape my cell by breaking the door down, and I then freed Katsutoshi and Orion, With the three of us out of our places, the amount of the lock that was on Zeus's Barrier was released, and we were able to easily get Kaminari out of it before her bonds with you and her brother allowed her to track down precisely where you two were being held. The rest of it was just intimidating Karayan and Nereza away from you and then releasing you and getting you back here."

"Huh." Gingka muttered, looking thoughtful.

Kaminari put a hand on her blader's shoulder. "He is not wrong. Although part of the reason that getting me out of Zeus's Barrier was so easy for Thorgisl and Katsutoshi to get me out of was because I did hear your shout for help even though I was unconscious."

"So he woke you up then." Raiden said.

"Precisely." Kaminari said. "And now it is time for the true fight to begin. We have to find the others."

"Where do we get started then?" Ren asked, one hand petting the fiery head and feathers of the phoenix that was perched atop a rock next to her.

"We currently have five of the Legendary Beys here. We must locate and bring back the five Solar System beys." Tatsuhime said.

"The five who now?" Shinobu raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Anubis, bey of Mercury, Quetzalcoatl, bey of Venus, Variares, bey of Mars, Jupiter, bey of, well, Jupiter, and Kronos, bey of Saturn." Gingka explained quickly.

"I think Gingka is the only one in the room, aside from Tatsuhime, who knew all of that information." Benkei laughed awkwardly. "I don't have that memorized nearly that well."

Gingka chuckled. "You remember it when you're part of the group. Although, that was obviously their Earth names, not the ones they go by here."

"Anubis, Quetzalcoatl, and Jupiter go by the same names." Katsutoshi spoke up. "But Variares's name is simply Ares, and Kronos is Shinigami."

"Fitting." Gingka commented. "Now we know what names to ask about."

"The difficult part will be tracking them down." Raiden said. "Especially since we don't exactly know where they were beforehand, do we?"

"We can start at their homelands. There will be one difficulty though." Tatsuhime said. "With all five of them."

"And what is that?" Benkei asked.

"All five of them are considered as gods in various mythologies on Earth." Kaminari said. "You have likely already noticed that beys of the same beast species tend to stick together in our clans. This island belongs to the dragons. Ifrit and Salamander were on the island where all of the beys who are what humans would call amphibians live. Raiden and I are from the island where all part-or-fully horse creatures are."

"So you're saying that, since all five of them are gods to some of our civilisations, they all have the same homeland. How is that a difficulty?" Kite asked, raising an eyebrow.

Katsutoshi sighed. "Because of the one other bey who we are dealing with who is also considered as a god that some have worshipped. Who has the same homeland. And will be keeping an eye out on it."

Gingka and Benkei's eyes widened in realization as they glanced at each other in alarm, gulping nervously.

"For that exact fact that you two have just realized," Tatsuhime began, "finding the remaining half of our group will be exceedingly difficult and dangerous."

"Anyone mind letting us into the loop here?" Ren asked.

"The other bey they are talking about is known as the 'God of Destruction.'" Gingka said. "Nemesis. They're saying that Nemesis has the same homeland as the beys we need to find. And he will know that and might expect us to come there looking."

"So by going there, we could be walking into another trap." Raiden said. "But this one would be one that would be near impossible to escape should we get caught."

"Mao may be powerful, but he is still limited." Kaminari said. "If we can out-strategize him, we can accomplish our goal."

"Do you guys have any sort of communication system that can be used for us to talk among our group? Because that'd be super helpful right now." Benkei said.

"If we did we would have been organized much more quickly and you would likely have not even known that this threat had happened." Tatsuhime said.

"Maybe you should get one set up." Gingka chuckled. "Since there's an obvious need for it."

"Perhaps so. But right now we do not have the time to develop and implement such a system." Tatsuhime growled.

"Well obviously. Mao is more important at the moment." Gingka said. "But food for thought once we've defeated him."

Kaminari nodded. "Perhaps you can stay and help us with that afterwards."

"We'll see." Gingka agreed. "But for now, what is the plan?"

Tatsuhime went into another room and came back with a large, rolled-up map. She, with a bit of help from Ryuga, unrolled it and laid it out on a large slab of rock in the center of the room.

"We are here." She stated, pointing to an island marked by a dragon. "The central city, where Kaminari and the others just escaped from, is here." She pointed to the center of the map and a large island. "The island of the gods and goddesses of Earth is all the way over here. It is on the opposite side of our planet."

"Too far for a single straight shot without Nemesis seeing us, since the most direct route seems to be right through that city." Gingka frowned.

"Therefore we cannot use the fastest way." Tatsuhime nodded.

"So we go around the city or around the other side of the planet then." Raiden said. "Not too much of a problem."

"Easy for you to say." Ifrit sweatdropped. "You can fly. Fast. Some of us don't have that ability."

"You'd crash into even more things if you could fly." Salamander snorted.

Ifrit glared. "Would not!" She protested.

"Would too." Salamander insisted, a smug smirk on her face as she spoke.

"Girls. Not the time." Zero and Shinobu said simulteneously, sweatdropping at their beys, who huffed and crossed their arms, looking away from each other pointedly.

"So those of us who can fly should carry as many of those who cannot as we can."

"Some of us who can't fly have enough speed to be able to get across the water under our own power." Thorgisl spoke up. "I can gallop fast enough to cross the water if I don't stop. But only in beast form. I can carry a few people that way."

\"As can I." Katsutoshi grumbled, clearly not pleased with the prospect of having to carry people, although he knew that he would have to do what needed to be done.

"I can carry at least one person." Raiden said. "Give me more time and I'll be able to carry more. My strength is returning at a pretty good pace."

"We should avoid staying together in one large group until we have gathered everyone." Kaminari said. "We are not at full strength without the others and if Mao is going to capture someone, it is best that he is unable to catch all of us at once. That would mean victory for him easily."

"So what groups do we go in then?" Benkei asked, shifting his grip on Bull's legs as the young boy sat on the shoulders of his blader.

"We have five beys to find." Ryuga said. "Each group should look for one."

"You're joining in?" Gingka raised an eyebrow at the dragon blader.

Ryuga huffed and crossed his arms, looking away. "Well I'm not going to sit out of the fight. I owe Mao a beating for last time. Plus, if Tatsuhime is going to help then I will too."

Gingka chuckled at this. "Well then, welcome aboard. We're gonna need your help anyway."

"We had best decide what groups to split into." Kaminari said. "Obviously beys and bladers should stick together. I think it would be a good idea for the Legendary Beys who are here to lead the groups."

"I agree." Tatsuhime said. "We know our fellow Legends best and where to find them. The only question remaining is which of the others should go with whom."

"I will find Quetzalcoatl." Katsutoshi said. "Her blader considers mine a good friend, even though he is rather annoyed by the little idiot at times."

"Sounds like Kyoya." Gingka laughed. "Benkei, you wanna go with him?"

"Bu-bu-bull! Of course I do!" Benkei exclaimed, stamping his foot. Bull just sweatdropped at his blader's excitement, an amused smile on his face.

"That settles one group then." Gingka nodded, looking thoughtful. "Thorgisl, who do you want to go after?"

"I will find Jupiter." Thorgisl said. "I know him best of the group."

"Alright, well who wants to go with him then?" Gingka turned to the group of younger bladers.

"Salamander and I will go." Shinobu said, stepping over to Thorgisl along with his bey.

"Tatsuhime and I will look for Ares. One left-rotation bey to another." Ryuga said. "And I suppose we'll be required to take one of you brats along. Which of you can fly, so that we do not have to carry anyone?"

Ren shyly raised her hand. "I think only Phoenix can fly out of our group…" She said, a sigh of relief coming from the other three who still had yet to be grouped with anyone.

"Once Orion returns from looking outside to make sure the coast it clear, he can take the Unbaras and their beys and find Shinigami." Kaminari said. "Which would leave myself, Gingka, Raiden, Zero, and Ifrit to go find Anubis."

"Sounds good to me." Gingka said. "It's decided then."

"We had best get going. It's quiet outside at the moment but I do not know for how long." Another voice said, as Orion stepped inside. "I heard what my assignment is. We had better go now."

"Agreed. The sooner we take care of this threat the better." Gingka said, rubbing his forehead. "Because once it's over, we can all rest easy."

"Off we go then. Mount up." Kaminari said, as all of the beys transformed into their beast forms.

"Zero, hop on." Gingka said, stepping around to the side of the winged mare.

"How?!" Zero exclaimed, looking up at Kaminari's back and wondering how he was going to manage to get up without any sort of stirrup.

Gingka paused, shrugged, then placed his hands on the horse's back and simply leapt up, swinging one leg over effortlessly.

"... You made that look way too easy." Zero said, sweatdropping.

Gingka chuckled and held out a hand to help the younger up. "Believe it or not, I sorta do this all the time. Well, in dreams. Apparently it does work the same way here."

"Apparently." Zero grumbled, watching Ifrit as the armored warrior mounted Raiden.

"Shall we take off then?" Gingka asked, noting that everyone else was mounted and waiting.

"What are you waiting for, a signal?" Ryuga asked as he patted the scaly head of the dragon whose back he was seated on.

Gingka chuckled and intertwined his fingers with Kaminari's wild mane. "Better hold on tightly, Zero. We can't have you falling off because of the speed at which we're about to travel."

Kaminari tossed her head and snorted, stamping a foot as she unfolded her wings. "Ready at your command, Gingka." She said softly.

"Well then… To start us off our way…" Gingka gained an amused grin on his face. "Three. Two. One… Let it rip!"


	15. Anubis

"How long have we been flying, exactly? My butt's sore." Zero said, hours later, as he, Gingka, Ifrit, Kaminari, and Raiden soared above the dark clouds.

"I'm not sure." Gingka said. "A while."

"We should be nearly halfway to our destination." Kaminari said. "But I think it would be a good idea to come up with a more detailed plan of approach. We cannot necessarily assume that Anubis is home. Regardless of whether or not he is, Mao may have patrols watching that area."

"I would be surprised if he didn't. The guy is rather paranoid, and probably more so now that we have all escaped and regrouped." Raiden said. "Of course, the question is, how will battles work out should we need one?"

"Zero and Ifrit can mostly handle themselves." Gingka said. "If they need help, then we can help them should it come to that difficult of a battle."

"My wings do need a rest and I see an island." Raiden said. "Just so you know."

"That looks like a deserted island as well." Kaminari said. "But we had better be careful. At this point, anything could be a trap."

"Should we land and stretch our legs a bit, rest your guys's wings?" Zero asked.

"That is up to Gingka." Kaminari said, glancing back at her blader as she flapped her wings slightly, beginning to turn to circle the island.

Gingka frowned thoughtfully. "Let's land if we can. But we should get a closer look to make sure it's safe first. Just in case."

"We will be ready for battle should that be necessary." Kaminari said, lowering her head and beginning to spiral downwards cautiously, with Raiden following close behind her.

"It's rocky. This won't be the most easy landing." Raiden called.

"Do your best." Gingka said. "I guess a larger island would be preferable but we don't seem to have that luxury."

"Hold on tightly then." Kaminari said. "I will have to come up to quite a quick stop, and there is only so much slowing down I can do while in the air."

Gingka nodded and leaned forwards slightly, readjusting his grip on the winged horse's mane before nodding in confirmation as he felt Zero's arms tighten around him in preparation. The very next instant, Kaminari and Raiden swooped down, forelegs outstretched towards the island in preparation for landing. Gingka and Zero grunted softly, nearly bouncing off of Kaminari's back as she hit the ground at a hard gallop, her hooves skidding slightly as she began to control and slow the speed at which she had been moving when she landed. Ifrit, on the other hand, slid sideways off of Raiden's back and hit the ground, tumbling for several yards before coming to a stop as Kaminari and Raiden managed to skid to an abrupt halt just at the water's edge on the opposite side of the island from where they had first touched down.

"Well. That does that." Gingka chuckled, panting slightly and stretching his arms and legs.

"I'm surprised I stayed on…" Zero muttered, sliding off and stumbling a bit, his legs stiff from gripping onto Kaminari's sides for so long.

"I'm okay!" Ifrit called from the center of the island as she popped up from under a large pile of dust, sneezing.

"I did try to tell you you needed to grip harder." Raiden laughed, shifting to humanoid form and stretching.

Ifrit grinned sheepishly as she also switched to humanoid form. "You didn't exactly land smoothly."

"Hard to when there's not enough space to glide in." Raiden shrugged.

"We'd better not stay here too long." Gingka said. "There's absolutely no cover here. If a sentry or anyone flew over right now, we'd be spotted immediately and Mao would know about it."

"Long enough to relax our wings is fine." Kaminari said, sitting down on the ground calmly. "Which will only take a few minutes."

"I think I need to walk around for a bit anyway… everything's sore." Zero grumbled, stretching.

Gingka chuckled. "That does tend to happen."

"I only hope there are no patrols nearby." Kaminari said. "It will not be easy to take off from this island either. There is not much length of ground to build up the speed needed to get into the air as quickly as I'd like, but we shall have to make do with what we have."

Gingka nodded. "You landed on it, you can launch from it."

"Where are we even headed? We're in the middle of nowhere." Zero pointed out.

Gingka pulled a map out of a bag hanging from his belt, unrolling it and looking at it, then at the island around them, then back at the map.

"Kaminari, which of these are we on? I think it's one in this grouping." He said, turning the map towards the bluenette as she came over to him and peered at the map herself.

"... We need to get off this island right now." She said in a soft, urgent tone. "I should have noticed what island it was earlier."

Gingka and Zero cast worried glances at each other at this.

"What island is it?" Raiden asked as he walked over, pulling Ifrit with him so that she would not trip over something.

"I'll explain once we get into the air." Kaminari said. "Nobody make any loud noises or sudden moves. We've alerted the inhabitants enough by landing, probably. We will be in great danger if we stay on this island one second longer."

Gingka bit his lip slightly at this and nodded, putting away the map as Raiden and Kaminari switched back to beast forms and spread their wings in preparation for takeoff. Gingka mounted effortlessly once more before pulling Zero up with him and glancing over to make sure that Ifrit got onto Raiden's back without trouble.

"Alright, let's go." Zero said, wrapping his arms securely around Gingka and gripping with his weary legs. He could hear the sounds of hissing beneath their feet. Was the island about to explode? It did not look volcanic. Then again, Kaminari had mentioned the inhabitants, not the island itself. So the hissing must be coming from whoever - or rather, whatever - lived here.

"Snakes." Gingka whispered. "Or snake-like creatures. Very sharp hearing. Probably hundreds of them beneath Kaminari and Raiden's hooves."

Zero's eyes widened at this and he shuddered. "That doesn't sound pleasant…"

Gingka shook his head. "Kaminari, let's go. We're all situated."

The winged horse tossed her head in agreement and trotted over to the very edge of the water, wading in until Gingka and Zero's feet were nearly touching the water to give herself as much room as possible. Raiden did the same thing just down the coastline.

Gingka took a deep breath, knowing that this takeoff was going to take quite the amount of power and even control from his end. Kaminari may be the one with wings, but Gingka knew that her ability to fly so high partially came from his ability to imagine her doing so.

"That hissing is getting louder." Zero and Ifrit said.

"They're zoning in on us and preparing to attack." Gingka muttered, taking a deep breath as he and both Pegasus beys started to glow. "Zero, despite the fact that Ifrit is currently here in her humanoid form, you still have control over her to an extent. Make sure she does not fall off of Raiden."

Zero nodded. "Got it."

"Well then… Fly, Pegasus!" Gingka yelled, his eyes snapping open and glowing faintly. Kaminari and Raiden's eyes glowed and even pulsated slightly as they reared up on their hind legs for an instant before surging forwards with the waves of the sea. Gingka watched the opposite side of the island as it approached and pictured in his mind both winged horses lifting off the ground just at its edge.

"Here they come!" Zero yelped as both horses nearly stepped on the heads of several snakes that burst out of the ground.

"They aren't the ones we're really worried about." Raiden snorted, his wings spread parallel to the ground as he picked up speed rapidly.

"They're getting bigger!" Ifrit shrieked, ducking underneath the coils of a snake whose body nearly spanned the length of Raiden's wingspan.

"Dodge it, Raiden!" Gingka yelped, the quick order causing Raiden to dart to the side to avoid a scythe held by a woman who was nearly the color of blood, her body that of a snake from the waist down.

"What is that?!" Zero screeched.

"Echidna. One of the ones we might have to worry slightly about." Kaminari replied breathlessly, beginning to flap her wings in preparation for a full takeoff.

"But that one is the one we really do need to worry about!" Raiden exclaimed, darting around the body of an enormous snake that burst from the ground. The very next instant, the snake had turned into an enormous woman with snakes for hair.

"Don't look at her!" Gingka yelled. "If you know the smallest thing about either Greek Mythology or the bey Poison Serpent, do not look at her!"

Zero snapped his eyes away from Medusa the instant Gingka had said that. He buried his face into the redhead's back and scarf to force himself not to look at the monster shooting her snakelike hair at them.

"Keep them from the sky!" Medusa roared, as hundreds upon hundreds of snakes laced themselves around the island.

"We can't take off if they block us off like this." Kaminari said.

"New plan then." Gingka growled. "Is it possible for me to give orders to both of you?"

"You have connection to both of us so I don't see why not, but if you have a plan, you'd better hurry!" Raiden whinnied, ducking his head to dodge a snake that was trying to bite his ears.

Gingka took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing. His skill as a blader allowed him to feel the field he was battling on without necessarily having to look. He leaned to the left, Kaminari turning that direction and beginning to gallop around the island rather than across it.

"Then we battle!" Gingka growled. "Special move! Pegasi, Double Storm Bringer!"

"Whoaaaaa!" Zero and Ifrit shrieked, doing all they could to hold on as both winged horses suddenly increased their speed, flames trailing from their wings and lining the ground underneath their hooves.

Gingka took a deep breath and let it out. It was taking all of his focus just to control both beys and keep them from ramming into each other. Really, if they were not fully willing to do what he said rather than trying to do what they thought was best, Gingka knew that he would only really be able to control one of them.

"Now! Get her!" He commanded, sweeping one arm to the side in dramatic fashion, the island and its monsters having become a beystadium with beys in his mind's eye. He could see, as well as feel, both Pegasus beys charging towards the center in a smooth spiral.

Kaminari lowered her head as she charged, ready to ram into the side of the monster she was facing. At the last second, however, her brain recieved a different order. In perfect sync, both horses whirled around in place and kicked with their hind legs, the movement nearly throwing their riders off as it sent Medusa and most of the other snakes flying off into the ocean surrounding them. The two then spiraled back out, reversing the pattern they had just used to attack and smacking more snakes out of the way with their wings as they went along.

Ifrit whooped as the blade of her sword met with the blade of Echidna's scythe and shoved the snake-woman back.

"Now! Fly!" Gingka yelled, snapping his eyes opened and grinning in triumph as both Pegasus beys finished their spiral and rocketed high into the air, out of the path of danger as is snarled up at them from the ocean below.

"Care to knock some sense into Medusa?" Gingka asked as he spotted the monster getting up from the corner of his eye.

"Gladly." Raiden snorted, arching his back and hovering just over the place where the monster was beginning to rise from the water. "Ready at your command."

"Use Ifrit to attack too." Gingka said, glancing back at Zero, who nodded in confirmation.

"Pegasus! Starblast Attack!" Gingka whooped, the old attack name echoing slightly against the clouds.

"Ifrit! Burning Uppercut!" Zero called.

Raiden began to dive straight down, forelegs outstretched, as Ifrit pointed her sword forwards, ready to attack.

Gingka chuckled at this. "Joint Special Move." He said before pausing and releasing an excited grin of amusement at the shocked look on Zero's face.

"Burning Nova!" The two called as their beys both made contact with Medusa, who roared in anger and pain and fell back beneath the waves, while Raiden and Ifrit simply rebounded off the island's coast and rejoined their bladers and Kaminari in the air.

"Let's get out of here before they can see which way we went!" Gingka called through the dust and water droplets kicked up by the explosion that the move had caused.

Kaminari and Raiden whinnied loudly in victory before darting off once more towards their intended destination.

"That was awesome." Zero said several minutes later, grinning as they once more rose above the dark clouds into a multicolored, starry sky.

"Got us back into the air, nobody got hurt, well, nobody on our side, and we got to battle. I'd say we've been pretty productive." Gingka chuckled.

"If you look at doing things. We have not been productive at all if you look at our actual objective." Kaminari pointed out, straightening her wings and gliding smoothly through the air.

Gingka grumbled under his breath at this.

"I do have to agree that it was fun." Kaminari chuckled, tossing her head slightly and ignoring the annoyed glare that her blader gave her.

"Do you always have to tell everyone what I'm thinking?" Gingka grumbled, pulling at her mane in a playful manner.

"The look on your face when I do is quite amusing." Kaminari snorted, looking back at him as she flew.

"How long until we get to where this Anubis guy lives?" Ifrit asked. "I'm hungry."

It was at that moment that both Gingka and Zero's stomachs growled quite loudly, followed moments later by the nearly thunderous growling of the horses' stomachs.

"Apparently we all are." Raiden laughed awkwardly.

"We are not too far out." Kaminari chuckled, trailing her hooves in the tops of the clouds and watching the sparks that flew as a result.

"I think he's home. He has a shield up." Raiden said as he caught sight of a glowing, deep blue dome.

"Judging by the destruction around his home, Mao did try to attack here rather recently." Kaminari nickered, frowning and narrowing her glowing blue eyes at this fact.

"I don't see anyone who could be an enemy. As a matter of fact, I don't see anyone at all." Gingka said, staring down past Kaminari's flapping wings at the shielded structure beneath them, barely visible through the clouds they were hiding in and churning up with their wings.

"Or feel, I take it." Kaminari said. "Like you would in a beystadium."

Gingka shook his head. "No but that doesn't mean a whole ton. They could be hiding and I don't know they're there."

"Only one way to find out." Raiden said. "That shield is one we should be able to get through. It keeps out only darkness. So Mao and his allies cannot get in. But we can. We're light and flame."

"So we just gotta drop in." Gingka said. "So let's go."

"Dragon." Raiden said suddenly, pulling up and rising higher into the clouds.

"Good or bad?" Gingka asked as Kaminari also rose.

"One of the triplets, so, bad." Raiden replied, narrowing his eyes. "Undoubtedly sent to watch and notify Mao if anyone tried to get into Anubis's home."

"So let's tie the stupid dragon around a tree and just get in." Zero said.

"Not that easy to do." Gingka said. "It'd require causing this world's equivalent to a sleep out in one single strike, then capturing and locking up that dragon."

"Now who's reading whose mind?" Kaminari rolled her eyes.

Gingka chuckled sheepishly. "I think a three-on-one battle will basically do it. Even if it is Karayan."

"If it is, we had better watch out. Gingka knows better than any of us how dangerous Karayan is." Raiden said.

"Don't remind me." Gingka grumbled, rubbing his neck absentmindedly at the fresh memory of his recent struggle against the dragon.

"We need to go now. He'll see the cloud movement from our wings if we don't." Kaminari said.

"Then do whatever you wish." Gingka said. "This should work just fine."

"Three. Two. One." Kaminari whispered a countdown before she and Raiden abruptly dove, folding their wings behind them and barrelling down atop the purple dragon that was slithering slowly around the blue domed shield arching over the grand-looking set of Egyptian-style architecture.

A startled roar echoed, the sound reaching a set of sleek, black, long jackal ears. Anubis, who was calmly sitting inside his shielded home and focusing mostly on keeping his shield up, looked up and stood from the throne he had been sitting in. He went to the window and looked outside, knowing that a roar of that particular intonation could only mean that the dragon stalking his every move was under attack.

"Feathers, hm? Blue ones at that." He said calmly, blue eyes scanning the outside. He could no longer see the dragon, but he could see the feathers floating down slowly in a line from the clouds above.

"So, it is at least one of the Pegasus twins." Anubis mused, turning from the window and calmly making his way to the front entrance of his home, stepping outside.

"I believe you needed this idiot out of the way so that you could get out of here to regroup with us and the others?" Kaminari said calmly as she and Raiden pinned an unconscious purple dragon to the ground just outside the edge of the shield.

Anubis bowed his head slightly as the shield dropped. "Quite so. But you must have come a long way and we have things to discuss, considering that I have no knowledge of such a gathering. Come, let us lock up this monster and refresh ourselves."

Gingka and the others glanced at each other with amused and triumphant smirks on their faces before they followed Anubis inside, taking the downed dragon with them. Now that they had safely made it to the home of the Mercury bey, they felt as if they could taste victory. All that remained to be seen was whether or not victory would actually be theirs.


	16. Quetalcoatl

"Bu-Bu-Bull! Why is it always me that gets chased by things?!" Benkei's voice echoed through a tunnel, along with the angered roar of a dragon.

"I told you that Kat went a different direction than we did! Now we've totally lost where he went!" Bull exclaimed mentally, his hooves pounding the ground as he ran, carrying Benkei by the back of his jacket, which was clamped firmly in Bull's teeth.

"Who even is this guy?!" Benkei exclaimed, glancing back past the pounding hooves of his bey at the lithe purple dragon that was slithering after them.

"I am not a 'guy' you idiot! Now come back here!" The dragon snarled, its voice clearly female.

"Great. It just had to be Nereza." Bull snorted.

"Who? And can't I ride on your back instead of dangling here like some kitten?!" Benkei said, glaring up at his bey.

"That would require stopping and considering that Nereza, who, by the way, is one-third of Lightning L-Drago, is right on my tail and about to bite it off, I'm not stopping. You want on my back you're gonna have to figure out how to get there. Plus, these tunnels are so narrow that you might hit your head."

"And getting narrower." Benkei noticed suddenly.

"... Brilliant." Bull grumbled.

"Kick her in the face!" Benkei yelped as he glanced back and saw just how close the dragon was.

Bull bellowed through his clenched teeth and kicked, hard. Nereza roared in anger and pain and crashed into the wall, collapsing part of it. Benkei gulped as the parts of the tunnel behind them continued to collapse. Bull abruptly turned a corner into a wider part of the tunnel and kept running, just as the space they had just run through collapsed behind them.

"I think we lost her." Benkei panted as Bull set him down on the ground and switched back to humanoid form, falling to his hands and knees.

"I didn't think I could run that fast…" The boy muttered under his breath, holding onto Benkei's jacket as the blader scooped him up and hugged him.

"Well you did. Sure showed her!" Benkei exclaimed.

"You. Wrecked. My. Tunnel!" an angry, shrill female voice screeched, causing both Benkei and Bull to shield their ears, wincing at the high pitch.

"Who's there?!" Benkei challenged as Bull hid behind him.

In response, a short, skinny female figure wearing a feathered cape stepped from the shadows, her golden eyes glaring at them in a manner that could only be described as authoritative. She stormed right up to Benkei and poked one finger hard into his leg, which was about as high as she could reach, before staring up at him angrily. Benkei found himself thinking that he would be intimidated by this child if she were a bit taller. As it was, he was having a hard time not laughing at how hard the little girl was trying to intimidate him. His amusement must have shown itself on his face, because the girl only grew angrier and punched him in the leg, a gesture which Benkei barely actually felt. The large man chuckled and knelt down, patting the girl's head.

"Well, sorry for messing up your tunnel, but we were running from a dragon. We should probably get you back to your parents, little one."

The blonde looked extremely angry at this, her eyes glowing before her body suddenly lengthened. Before Benkei knew what was going on, he had been knocked flat on his back and was staring into the angry face of a winged serpent-like creature.

"For your INFORMATION, idiot, I am no 'little one.' And don't you DARE pat my head again or there WILL be consequences. Namely, I will eat you, and if you think that I can't-" She was interrupted by the sound of a throat being cleared, loudly, causing her to look up angrily.

"Relax and leave the idiot human alone, Quetzalcoatl." Katsutoshi said as he approached, arms crossed.

"Kat! Where did you go?!" Bull exclaimed.

Katsutoshi looked annoyed. "I was tracking down Quetzalcoatl while you two were occupied getting discovered, for your information. And quit calling me Kat!"

"But it's so much easier to remember than whatever your full name is." Benkei pointed out. Bull nodded in agreement as Quetzalcoatl shrank back down to her humanoid form.

"Long time no see, Kat!" The blonde squealed, leaping towards the lion bey and hugging his leg tightly, refusing to let go.

Katsutoshi glared at her in annoyance. "Off." He growled.

"Nah. I'm staying here." she giggled, wrapping her legs around his ankle.

"... Her mood completely changed from a second ago." Benkei said, staring in surprise at the cheerful demeanor of the bey that had been growling in his face moments ago.

Katsutoshi sighed. "She does that." he grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance as Quetzalcoatl giggled and rocked back and forth on his leg.

"We should get out of here before Nereza breaks through that debris and finds us…" Bull said, glancing nervously at the pile of rock.

"Still mad at you for ruining my tunnel." Quetzalcoatl huffed, pausing her giggling to glare at Benkei and Bull, who sweatdropped.

"Forget the tunnel, Quetz. We gotta get you outta here and regroup with the others." Katsutoshi sighed, beginning to walk off deeper into the tunnels. "Now how do we get back to the surface, because I'm ready to head back to the others."

"But it's so fun down here!" Quetzalcoatl whined.

"More fun if you have space to move around." Katsutoshi snarled.

"Awwwwwww. You don't like my tunnels? Fiiine." Quetzalcoatl pouted and got off of Katsutoshi's leg, walking over to Benkei and staring up at him with a thoughtful frown.

"Carry me." She demanded, lifting her arms. "I order you to."

"... Okay then." Benkei said, bending down and picking up both her and Bull, one small being in each arm.

"Waiit a minuuute… You're not a bey! You're human!" Quetzalcoatl said suddenly. "How are you here?!" She began to poke Benkei's face.

"He's my blader." Bull spoke up. "He and a bunch of the others are here to help stop Mao."

"Is that true, Kat?" Quetzalcoatl twisted around to look at the lion bey.

"Quit calling me that." Katsutoshi growled. "And yes. Hagane and several of the others are here. We all split up to find you solar systems and bring you back to the rest of the group so that we can all defeat Mao."

"Ohhhhhh. That's why you came down here and were being chased by that dragon. I don't like dragons." Quetzalcoatl huffed, turning up her nose.

"Too bad. We're regrouping at their island." Katsutoshi grunted as he began to walk off. "Now get us out of these tunnels."

"We're going WHERE?!" Quetzalcoatl shrieked. Benkei and Bull winced again at the high pitch of her voice.

"Just shut up and tell us the way out." Katsutoshi snarled, glaring at her with his glowing green eyes.

"Left at the next tunnel branch." Quetzalcoatl grumbled. "I know it goes downhill but it'll lead to a secret entrance far away from the normal one, which, since you guys just HAD to attract the attention of a stupid dragon, will be under stronger watch now, as if it weren't already."

"You were using these tunnels to keep Mao from finding you then?" Bull asked.

"Duh! I know these tunnels like the back of my hand!" Quetzalcoatl exclaimed. "Plus, none of the little soldiers he's been sending in are any match for me. I've been taking them all out and stuff before they can figure out how to get back out. Or just stalking them and making creepy noises as they get more and more lost in the tunnels. It's quite fun to watch them freak out."

Katsutoshi groaned mentally and kept pressing onwards as the gold-haired, gold-clad bey kept chattering and chattering on about just about every tiny detail of what she had been up to since Mao had broken free. He wondered why he had volunteered to come find this particular bey. He could have volunteered to find Anubis, or even Ares. But no. He had volunteered to come find Quetzalcoatl. And he was fairly sure that his blader's reluctant bond with Quetzalcoatl's blader had something to do with it. Neither Kyoya or Katsutoshi would have ever admitted that they sort of enjoyed being around a chatterbox of a child who insisted on calling them by a nickname. Admitting such would make them look weaker, they thought. But, deep down, both knew that they did care for the little ones.

"Quetz. Right or left." Katsutoshi grunted as he reached another intersection of tunnels.

"Right!" Quetzalcoatl exclaimed before continuing her chattering as if she had never been interrupted.

Katsutoshi sighed and kept walking, allowing an amused smile to cross his lips for an instant as he listened in on the mostly one-sided conversation that was going on behind him.

Meanwhile, on a rather deserted-looking island, Ryuga and Tatsuhime, as well as Ren and Phoenix, had landed, and were searching around for any sign of Ares.

"I don't know if I even have the energy to take another step." Phoenix panted, one of his arms around the shoulders of his blader, who was trying to support him.

"They sure did fly fast. Almost like they were trying to lose us and leave us behind." Ren grumbled, glancing sideways at the dragon woman and her blader, who were busy turning over a large slab of rock to look underneath it.

"If we were trying to leave you behind you would have been left behind, trust me." Tatsuhime growled. "But since you are here, clearly you were able to fly at that speed and we got here sooner than we would have had we stayed at the speed you were trying to fly."

"Yeah, but now we're both exhausted! What if someone attacks!" Ren exclaimed.

"Then you will simply have to get stronger and overcome the challenge." Tatsuhime said in a disinterested tone. "That is what we have always done and what we will continue to do."

"Exhaustion is no excuse." Ryuga grunted, kicking at a few branches that were laying on the ground before stepping cautiously on them to see if they would give way. "Over here. This is a covered pit."

Tatsuhime and the other two walked over as Ryuga stomped harder on the branches, causing them to break and fall into the pit. The Dragon Emperor peered in, then sat down on the edge and began to climb into the pit.

"Lower me in. These sides have no holds." He grunted to Tatsuhime, who nodded and lowered her head into the pit, allowing Ryuga to step onto her head just in front of her horns as she slithered carefully down. Ren and Phoenix glanced at each other, wondering if they were supposed to follow.

"Are you two coming?" Tatsuhime asked as she switched back to humanoid form, disappearing into the hole.

"... How are we supposed to get down there?" Ren asked.

"No clue… Grab my talons." Phoenix said, switching to beast form and hovering in the air above Ren, who reached up and grabbed the bird's ankles. Phoenix screeched before lifting her up and flapping slowly to keep from dropping too fast as he dropped himself and his blader into the hole. At the bottom, they found Ryuga and Tatsuhime searching around for something they could light on fire to use as a torch. Eventually, this was accomplished, and Ryuga gruffly handed one lit stick to Ren before stalking off down a passageway he had found.

"Is this Ares guy down here?" Ren asked, trying to be friendly.

"Probably." Ryuga grunted.

"It is the only structure on this whole island that is left." Tatsuhime said. "The rest was destroyed, probably by Mao. He likely thinks that Ares is dead, or at least unable to get out."

"Duck." Ryuga grunted, dropping easily to one knee as a sword embedded itself in the wall above his head. In the same instant, Tatsuhime had removed a whip from under her cloak and had sent its coils flying towards the figure who had attacked. A startled yelp came as the dragon woman yanked at the whip, roughly jerking an armored figure into the light from their torch.

"Ares. How dare you attack." She snarled. Ren and Phoenix blinked in surprise at how quickly they had found the bey.

Ares merely glared. "Well excuuuse me if I saw and heard a dragon coming in and didn't know it was you and not one of Mao's evil lackeys."

"You mean one of the triplets who makes up my predecessor as his bey?" Tatsuhime snarled, clearly angered further by this.

"Oh, just chill and untie me." Ares grunted. "Why are you even here?"

Tatsuhime huffed and flicked her wrist, uncoiling the whip from Ares's body and putting it back under her cloak where it belonged in one fluid motion. "We're gathering all of the Legendary Beys to take down Mao."

Ares blinked in surprise. "And you're helping."

Ryuga rolled his eyes. "We have to pay that idiot back for last time, that's all."

Ares chuckled and retrieved his sword from the wall. "So you're helping and using that excuse to not admit it."

"Whatever." Ryuga grunted. "Let's get out of here."

"That won't be so easy for you." A low voice growled.

Ryuga's face immediately twisted into a scowl at this.

"Karayan. I should have guessed you would be guarding here. You will wish you had never decided to confront us." Tatsuhime said, turning slowly and narrowing her eyes at the figure standing behind them, his clawed hands scraping against the rock walls and making a sound that made shivers go down the backs of everyone but Ryuga and Tatsuhime.

"Oh but I have a debt to repay to you for tricking me and my siblings." Karayan growled.

"There was no trick." Tatsuhime said. "You three broke the rules and I was sent to replace you. It is as simple as that."

Karayan stalked closer, his one eye glowing a deep red. "You stole our prey."

"You knew that absorbing bladers was illegal. You should have seen it coming. Really, you should have been punished for it the first time you did it, but at that time no bey could defeat you, until Raiden came along and did so, allowing for your arrest." Tatsuhime snarled, reaching for her whip once more. "Also, it would not be wise of you to attack me now. I will not hesitate to kill you."

Karayan sneered. "Kill me? You cannot kill me. I have absorbed far too many bladers to die."

"Oh please." Ryuga snapped. "That means nothing in the long run. And I should know, since I nearly got absorbed by you myself before you were defeated by Hagane."

Karayan snarled as he dropped to all fours and turned fully into the dragon that he was. "You will regret reminding me of that."

"Sore loser much?" Ares commented.

"No kidding." Phoenix gulped.

"I will kill all of you if I have to." Karayan snarled. "You are lucky my sister is not here to drain your power before that happens."

"You mean Nereza? Oh please. She calls that draining? That's an annoying little poke, not a power drain." Tatsuhime snarled back, beginning to change forms as well.

"Ares. Take them back out of here. Phoenix and the girl know where to go. Do not let yourselves be followed. I have a score to settle with this guy too." Ryuga growled, widening his stance as he and Tatsuhime prepared to take on Karayan.

"Will do. Good luck." Ares said, turning back the way he had come and gesturing for Ren and Phoenix to follow.

"Will they be alright?" Ren asked as she and her bey followed the warrior down the dark passageways, glancing back from time to time to make sure there were no dragons, or at least no purple ones, following them.

"It's Tatsuhime. She's only ever lost one battle from what I can tell, and that was when she fought Mao by herself." Ares said. "Her blader has only lost two battles. The one against Mao, of course, and the one against Raiden that got Karayan and his siblings locked up. It was big news here when that happened."

"So they'll be fine then right?" Phoenix said.

"I'd be surprised if they lost. But Karayan will target Ryuga. He knows he cannot beat Tatsuhime. But if he can control Ryuga, he won't have to. But they know that as well. Tatsuhime will not let Karayan reach her blader."

Ren gulped as she glanced back, hearing roaring that indicated the battle had begun.

"So where are we going?" Ares asked.

"Tatsuhime's homeland."

"Ahh. We had best go through Quetzalcoatl's tunnels then. She connected many of our homes to each other so that, in the case of this happening, we might be able to regroup. Of course, that only goes for the Solar System beys, since we live on the same continent."

"So you guys could find each other, right?"

"Not quite, necessarily." Ares sighed. "Quetz designs her tunnels so that you will get lost in them. She is the only one who knows the entire map."

"... So we're going into a tunnel we could get lost in?" Ren said in a rather frightened tone.

"Pretty much. But not if we find Quetz. She'll be able to get us-whoa!" Ares yelped as he bumped into another figure, falling over.

"... Ares?" A familiar voice growled.

"... Oh. Hi Kat." Ares said, blinking. "What are you doing here?"

"Escaping and taking Quetz out of here." Katsutoshi replied, grunting as he got up and dusted himself off.

"We were just coming in to find her." Ares said.

"Ares!" Quetzalcoatl jumped from Benkei's arms and tackled the warrior bey. "Long time no see! Why are you down here?"

"Long story short, my home's been destroyed, and we're trying to use your tunnels to escape." Ares said.

"To get to the island of the dragons?" Katsutoshi guessed, spotting Ren and Phoenix. "Where are Ryuga and Tatsuhime?"

"Well… Occupied fighting Karayan." Ares replied.

"... We can't use your doorway to get out, can we?" Quetzalcoatl asked.

Ares shook his head. "Nope. Totally blocked by the dragons' battle."

"Stupid dragons ruin everything." Quetzalcoatl grumbled. "We'll have to use Jupiter or Shinigami's exits then."

"Considering the trend, I'd guess that those are also guarded. We have Nereza still in pursuit of us." Katsutoshi mused. "Despite all of our attempts at avoiding fights, we may have to fight anyway."

"If it comes to it, it comes to it, I guess." Ares sighed. "Let's just get out of here and leave the fighting to Tatsuhime. If we gotta fight Nereza, it'll be five-on-one and she won't stand a chance anyway. Even with her power draining ability."

"Welp, off to Jupiter then. His entrance is closest and maybe we'll meet up with another group." Quetzalcoatl said, skipping off down yet another side tunnel.

The others glanced at each other before following, the roars of dragons ringing in their ears as they continued on towards their goal of regrouping and defeating Mao once and for all.


	17. Regrouping

**-banging head on wall- I'm SO sorry guys! I had slight writer's block and was also sorta lazy after the intensity of NaNoWriMo (Which I did complete. Don't remember if I announced that here.) Anyway, here's this chapter, which has been waiting in my documents since November's end because I forgot about it. I shall hopefully soon have the next chapter up AND the next chapter or an announcement up on Eye of the Storm 2 (Whiiiich has been on hiatus for three months now... Whoops.) But for now, enjoy this chapter and the knowledge that I have not disappeared entirely lol.**

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"You'd think that those other entrances would be able to be gotten out of. This means that I have to finish digging through to Anubis so we can try his doorway." Quetzalcoatl grumbled as she stormed down passageways. "But no, they just HAD to be blocked off by Mao's associates, so we just HAVE to be stuck down here."

"Why can't we just attack them anyway?" Eight asked, his group having joined up with the others in the tunnels just before Shinigami's home.

"Jupiter's entrance was collapsed, leaving it practically a miracle that he was trapped inside for us to find so that he could tell us that, Shinigami couldn't get out without entering Hades' Gate, and I haven't even finished my tunnel to Anubis yet!" Quetzalcoatl continued, "If we go attack the beys guarding those entrances they'll know we're here and they'll just call in Mao, because if we're inside Hades' Gate, Kerbecs could do just about anything outside of it and we wouldn't know. He could just take us right to Mao's doorstep and drop us off right there and we wouldn't notice until we were destroyed!"

"I think you're getting a little too hysterical here, Quetz." Ares commented, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder, only for her to swat him away and glare at him.

"Not to mention the fact that there are TWO evil dragons in my tunnels, and oh, who led them here? Right, you guys!"

"Well at least they aren't following us, right?" Shinobu pointed out. "I didn't even know they were here."

"Nereza and Karayan." Katsutoshi said. "And yeah, Benkei and Bull lost Nereza in the tunnels after she chased them for a while, and the last I heard, Tatsuhime and Ryuga were fighting Karayan."

"Defeating, you mean." Ryuga's voice echoed as he and Tatsuhime rounded a corner, finding themselves in the midst of the group.

"The fool retreated when he realized that I was serious about ripping his throat out." Tatsuhime growled, clearly quite annoyed by this fact. "We had best hurry. He will have reported our presence here to Mao within a few hours."

"And we don't know where Nereza is, although she's probably lost in the tunnels somewhere." Benkei said.

Quetzalcoatl glared at Tatsuhime, clearly displeased by the dragon's presence there.

"Cool down, Quetz. At least she's on our side." Shinigami sighed, putting one bony hand on the short girl's head.

"What is it that you have against dragons, anyway?" Ren asked.

"Yeah, did you have a bad run-in with one once or something?" Orion asked, raising an eyebrow at the girl.

Quetzalcoatl whirled on all of them, pointing at Tatsuhime angrily. "Nobody is supposed to be more fabulous than me!" She shrieked.

Everyone just stared at Quetzalcoatl in shock at this statement. They had been expecting her to say something more, say, serious? Then again, those who knew her best thought, she WAS Quetzalcoatl.

"Yet, when people think of cool or beautiful creatures, do they think of feathered serpents?! No! They think of dragons, and it's annoying! I have FEATHERS for crying out loud! Feathers are awesome! Just ask the Pegasi, or any sort of bird bey! Why do people think scales are cooler?!"

"So… You can't stand dragons… Because people think they're cooler than you are…?" Kite said slowly.

"Yeah! Why can't I be fabulous too?!" Quetzalcoatl shrieked.

Tatsuhime sighed. "Quetzalcoatl, is that really this important right now? We have more important things to do than being 'fabulous' as you put it. Plus, I was not trying to be fabulous. I have my focus on my own power more than how I look."

"And that's the worst part!" Quetzalcoatl whined, turning to the dragon bey. "You're fabulous without even trying! It's not fair, I tell you!"

"You're already fabulous now let's get moving and get back to our island." Ryuga grumbled, crossing his arms in annoyance.

Everyone stared at the dragon blader in shock. None of them had expected the words that had come out of Ryuga's mouth. The compliment was even more surprising than Quetzalcoatl's sudden declaration that she did not like dragons because she thought they were more fabulous than she was. Even Quetzalcoatl was shocked into silence, a light golden glow of a blush appearing on her cheeks.

"What? She's basically a dragon with feathers, isn't she?" Ryuga grumbled, looking annoyed (and rather embarrassed, although he would never admit it) at the fact that everyone was staring at him.

"So you're basically saying that you think Quetzalcoatl looks as fabulous as Tatsuhime." Thorgisl said, looking rather amused.

Ryuga grumbled something under his breath that caused Tatsuhime to roll her eyes at him.

"It's more of a big deal than you think when you say something like that, since you rarely do." The dragon bey said, reaching up and straightening the headpiece she was wearing.

"Whatever. Let's just get moving." Ryuga growled, turning to head down the tunnels once more.

"Anubis is the other way." Quetzalcoatl called, turning down another tunnel to continue leading the way, her head held high in defiance.

Ryuga grumbled and turned to follow the rest of the group as they laughed awkwardly at him and did so themselves.

"I've still gotta dig the rest of this tunnel but we should be close." Quetzalcoatl said, stepping up through a glowing blue barrier and putting her hand on a dead-end wall.

"What is that thing?" Benkei asked, reaching out to touch the barrier only to find that his hand went right through it.

"Anubis has a way of shielding his home." Jupiter spoke up from the back of the group. "Essentially, only beys or being with light-based energy can pass through. Meaning that Mao or the L-Drago triplets cannot get inside, but we can, since we are allies."

"So we just gotta step through and dig, right?" Ren said. "To get out to Anubis."

"And perhaps also to Gingka's group, assuming they were able to reach Anubis and there is no trouble." Thorgisl said.

"It is Gingka. Any trouble short of Mao would be something he could handle easily, especially with both of the Pegasus twins plus Zero and Ifrit on his side." Katsutoshi said. "He's probably there and hanging out with Anubis, if they haven't already started to head back to the island."

"Only one way to find out." Shinigami said, pulling out his scythe and beginning to help Quetzalcoatl dig into the wall.

"This should only take a few minutes if we all dig in. Literally." Ares said, pulling out his sword and helping.

Within minutes, the group had broken through the ground, finding themselves inside a grand temple that, to the bladers, reminded them of Egyptian architecture.

"Well, you can tell that this is Anubis's home." Benkei commented. "It's almost exactly like his temples on Earth."

"I believe that was intentional, although I cannot say whether he designed his home after Earth's temples or whether Earth's temples were designed after his home." Tatsuhime said.

"Anubis! You home?" Katsutoshi roared, stalking deeper into the large room, his voice echoing off the walls menacingly.

"No need to shout. I heard you finish digging your tunnel." Anubis replied, stepping through the doorway. "Although I am surprised that you are all here. I was told we were meeting at Tatsuhime's home."

"That was the original plan. Since you know that, I'll assume that Gingka's group did make it here safely." Thorgisl said.

Anubis nodded. "Yes. They are resting from their journey in the other room and we were talking about how to get back and what to do with the enemy they knocked out and captured."

"'Knocked out and captured'?" Ryuga looked interested at this.

"One of the L-Drago triplets. I believe they discovered that it was Dougal who was attempting to keep anyone from reaching me." Anubis said.

"Well that does account for the third one. But if he's taken out already, then we can easily leave from this place." Katsutoshi said.

"We should probably not stay here, if it was being watched. Even with Dougal taken out, Karayan and Nereza still know that we were hanging around. It is likely that Karayan has already reached Mao and told him that we were at Ares's home." Tatsuhime said.

"Then we should attempt to leave immediately." Anubis said. "We should at least move to another island that is less of a threat to Mao, as I will assume that most if not all of you are quite tired."

"It'll be harder to leave the longer we stay here." Jupiter said. "We need to go immediately, as Anubis said. We can rest later and help those who are too exhausted to move."

Anubis nodded and led them into the other room, where Gingka was casually seated on a couch, reading a scroll and trying not to let it roll up again over where he was reading.

"The others have all come here." Anubis announced.

Gingka looked up with a raised eyebrow, a surprised look on his face as he managed to identify all eight of the other Legendary Beys.

"Weren't we meeting at the dragons' place?" He asked, standing and setting the scroll aside.

"Well we ran into some complications and had to use Quetz's emergency tunnels to get here. We were just talking about how we should leave immediately and head off to our destination. Karayan fled from Tatsuhime and Ryuga and has undoubtedly told Mao of their presence at Ares's place. It won't take long for Mao to decide to check all of the places where we might show up."

"In that case, since we're all here, perhaps we shouldn't go back to the dragons' island at all. If Mao knows that Tatsuhime and Ryuga are still alive and a threat, he may think of checking that island." Kaminari spoke up, stepping out of another room and running a gloved hand through her blue hair.

"Then we had better come up quickly with an island that he will not initially think of checking." Tatsuhime said, turning to a map on the wall. "None of our islands would be a wise choice."

"That rules out quite a few islands." Raiden said, stepping up and pulling Ifrit aside so that she would not run into a pillar.

"We should likely avoid even the ones that are home to any of the beys here. We know that Mao may know about Phoenix and Ren." Ryuga said. "Since they were with us when Karayan showed up."

"So it would be a logical suspicion that, if he doesn't find us at our homelands, he would look at the homelands of these beys as well." Raiden said, frowning in thought.

"We need to rule out the island we paused on for a while on our way here. Bad idea written all over that one." Gingka laughed.

Ryuga raised an eyebrow at the redhead, his facial expression asking the question that was on his mind.

"Two words: Poison Serpent." Gingka chuckled, shaking his head. "That was a bit too much attention for what we're trying to accomplish."

Tatsuhime snorted. "You landed on the snakes' island? Any of us would have told you that was a stupid idea."

"We didn't exactly notice what island it was when we landed." Raiden said. "And hey, we blew them all away anyway."

"We could go to the island of the monsters." Ifrit suggested.

"That doesn't sound a whole lot safer." Benkei said hesitantly.

"Well, yeah, I know, but I have friends there and they'd be able to help us hide." Ifrit said. "Even if it is the home of Kerbecs. Another of the Cerberus group is a good friend of mine, as well as one of the Chimera."

"Better than nothing." Gingka mused, glancing around at the group. "Any opposition?"

"None here." Tatsuhime sighed. "We had best get moving."

"Kerbecs was occupied guarding one of our homes anyway, and will not be there." Jupiter said.

"Then let's go. We'll leave Dougal here, locked up as he is." Kaminari said. "If his siblings find him it will be no problem for us. We'll be long gone by the time they can figure out he's here. Especially since it would seem that they were to watch and only tell anyone anything if we showed up."

"I'm all for that." Gingka said. "Into the air we go then."

"I'll lower the shield. We'll have no need for it if we're gone and I cannot maintain it from a distance anyway." Anubis said.

"We should move in a rather spread-out formation, but stick together mostly." Tatsuhime said. "Now that we are all in one group, if Mao comes, we should not have much trouble taking him out."

"Why don't we just go after him now then?" Zero asked.

"Many of us need rest still, from the long journeys we have just taken." Katsutoshi said. "Come to think of it, the island of the monsters is quite close to the city. We can attack from there easily at any time. This will mostly be a trip to regroup and get a plan together to take out Mao permanently."

Gingka nodded. "And this time I'd better not be fighting alone because this time our world is not watching to back us up with their bladers' spirits."

"You won't be." Thorgisl rolled his eyes. "Especially not since we'll have some of the element of surprise and will be able to all attack at once."

Gingka chuckled. "I know." He turned and mounted Kaminari as the bey switched to her beast form, stamping one hoof.

"Anyone who can't fly, stick close to anyone who can, unless you can swim, in which case you'd better swim fast. We're gonna get there as fast as we can all move." Katsutoshi said, dropping down on all fours and also switching to beast form, as all of the other beys did the same.

"Mind if I use the same battle cry as when we left on this mission?" Gingka asked, grinning excitedly.

"Only if you let us all cry it with you." Zero said, scrambling up behind Gingka and grinning as well.

"Fine by me. The more the merrier." Gingka laughed, ruffling the Ifrit blader's hair.

Kaminari and Raiden exchanged a smile at the lightheartedness of the redheaded blader, mentally noting that it as a welcome change from how upset he had been, although he had hidden it from the others, after Karayan had nearly taken his life.

"Well then, let's go!" Gingka whooped, patting Kaminari's neck and intertwining his fingers with her mane, leaning forwards in readiness.

"Three!" Raiden whinnied, beginning the countdown.

"Two." The others joined in.

"One!" Gingka punched the air, as a bright, multicolored glow filled the room from all of the various beys and bladers.

"Let it rip!" They all yelled, hooves, claws, and paws pounding against the ground and causing it to shake as all of them shot out of doors, windows, and any other opening that led to the outside; a surge of power sweeping them all along with each other, a glowing web that expanded as they surged into the sea and sky, on their way to their next destination, and ultimately, their final battle against the foe that had kept them scurrying and hiding for so long now. But the fact that they had each other at their sides now gave them all confidence and hope, two things which they had been lacking before this moment. They knew that the battle would still be difficult, but, no matter how difficult, they also knew that they would most definitely win. It was only a matter of time.


	18. Preparation

"Well this island isn't dark and foreboding at all." Zero commented as he and the others landed in a thick, dark forest.

"Low visibility. That could be an advantage or a disadvantage." Raiden said, frowning slightly and peering into the thick brush.

"As long as we stay close and don't get separated, we'll be fine." Shinigami spoke up, pulling his hood closer around his head.

"It will be a good place to get our battle plans ready." Gingka said.

"And to rest from what we just did." Kaminari said, looking up calmly at the dark skies above their heads.

"This battle will be harder than the last, huh?" Gingka sighed.

"We can do it. We defeated him last time. The only reason things got this bad was because he caught us off guard." Katsutoshi grumbled.

"At least this time I can watch." Raiden chuckled. "And perhaps help."

"Would it not be possible for a blader to command two beys?" Ren wondered, looking at Gingka.

"Theoretically if both were willing, it would be possible. But it would require an intense amount of concentration on the blader's part, and likely has never been attempted." Tatsuhime said calmly.

"It should be easier here due to the fact that they can respond to you directly." Thorgisl said. "But still, keeping track of the location and patterns of two beys would be difficult. Although, that has never stopped you, has it?"

Gingka grinned sheepishly. "Actually, uh… We've already tried this and done it pretty successfully when we were escaping that snake island…"

The others stared at the redhead in shock.

"... Okay this I've gotta see." Thorgisl admitted. "Controlling two beys in battle hasn't been done before to my knowledge."

"So let's battle!" Zero exclaimed.

"Hey you're not gonna count us out of this!" Ren exclaimed.

"The wise course of action would be to find where we are staying before we do any battling." Tatsuhime said. "We came here to find friends of Ifrit who she said could let us stay at their places, provided they are friendly enough. I suggest we find them before initiating any sort of practice battle, and any battles we do have should be restricted to not draw attention that is not wanted until we are ready for it."

This statement resulted in a collective chorus of "Awwwww…." from several of the others in the group.

"I have to admit that she's right." Kaminari said. "We shouldn't attract attention before we rest."

"And our attacks always attract attention." Raiden laughed. "With all the explosions that just tend to happen whether we try to make them happen or not."

Gingka grinned sheepishly. "Not my fault I get fired up in battle."

"Let us get moving." Tatsuhime sighed. "Lead the way, Ifrit."

Ifrit nodded and promptly did so, pushing through the thick branches surrounding them (and running into a few along the way).

"Who are we going to meet, anyway?" Gingka asked after a while of pushing through brush listening to Quetzalcoatl complain repeatedly about not being fabulous enough, a topic which everyone, Tatsuhime especially, was getting enormously tired of hearing.

"Two of the others in the three-headed monster family, like Kerbecs but not too closely related to him, I think." Ifrit said. "I know their bladers are brothers because whenever I'm around them they're always facepalming about one of them."

"... You're sure this is a good idea when they're related to Kerbecs? What if he's around them?" Raiden asked. "If he finds out we're here, then by extension so will Mao."

"Nah, they'd never tell him. Kerbecs's blader works for that organization you guys are always fighting."

"Meaning Hades Inc., or more currently, the DNA." Gingka spoke up.

"Precisely. I know that the bladers of the two we're going to see are both strongly against that organization. I don't know why, because they'll never tell me, but their bladers, or one of them, would die before helping those guys."

"I think I have a clue to who you mean." Zero said. "If they are who I think they are, then we can trust these two."

"We're getting close." Ifrit said. "I'll go up first. Sometimes they can be a bit 'pounce first, ask questions later' with people they don't know."

"Sounds good to me. We'll wait here." Kaminari said calmly, leaning against a tree.

"Just don't trip over anything and make too much noise." Salamander teased.

"Oh hush, I don't do that all the time!" Ifrit protested as she glanced back for a second, only to walk into a tree and fall flat on her back.

"Uh-huh. Sure you don't." Salamander chuckled, as everyone else promptly facepalmed.

Ifrit grinned sheepishly as she got up and walked around the tree and out of sight into a nearby cave entrance. "Cerberus! Chimera! Where are you two?" she called softly into the darkness, receiving no response for a few seconds before yelping and leaping back against the wall of the cavern as she was nearly tackled by a three-headed, golden dog wearing armor. (Gingka immediately noticed that the dog looked rather like a large German Shepherd, save for the coloration and armor.)

"Oh come on Cerberus! You know my voice, you idiot!" Ifrit yelped.

"I do. I just prefer to scare you because the look on your face when I do is absolutely priceless." The dog replied, each head saying a different part of the sentence.

"Okay that just hurts my brain…" Zero muttered, trying to keep his attention on the head that was speaking and failing.

"I was waiting in ambush for you for a while there. Chimera heard you outside like five minutes ago." Cerberus said, glowing slightly and changing to the form of a young boy with messy hair and, thankfully, only one head. "Come on in."

"Well I actually have a whole ton of others with me that I figured I'd warn you about…" Ifrit said sheepishly.

Cerberus paused. "How many, precisely?"

Ifrit paused and thought. "Uhh… The Legendary beys, two of their bladers, plus a few other friends and their bladers, so… Twenty-ish?"

Cerberus laughed awkwardly. "Well… If none of them are giants and they all stay in humanoid form we should have room. I'll just warn my sister while you get them."

Ifrit grinned sheepishly and nodded, poking her head out of the cave again and motioning the others over.

"Yo, Chimera, we've got company." Cerberus said as everyone entered.

"I heard already." another voice said from the back of the cave before another figure stepped out of the shadows, this one wearing black armor that mostly hid her figure, a snakeskin sash around her waist.

"You and your sharp hearing." Cerberus grumbled.

"It's the hearing of a snake. You cannot blame me for my own abilities." Cerberus shrugged, removing her helmet and calmly surveying the rather large group of people that had just walked into her home with her faintly glowing red eyes. "What brings this many, the legendaries, no less, here?"

"This island is the closest safe point from which to strike Mao after we regain our energy and come up with a plan of attack." Tatsuhime spoke up first, taking on a commanding tone.

Chimera shrugged. "I suppose I cannot argue with that. We can put up with a packed home for a while if it'll get rid of that idiotic, so-called god of destruction."

"Well at least we know you're on our side." Ryuga huffed.

"Considering who her blader is that's no surprise." Gingka chuckled. "I see the hatred of that organization is shared."

The others, particularly the beys, looked at the redhead in confusion.

"Hers and Cerberus's bladers are my cousins." Gingka shrugged. "They have quite a bit of history with the DNA and one of them has sworn vengeance on the organization and probably isn't going to stop training until he defeats or kills every last one of them. Can't say I agree with the killing idea but that's beside the point at the moment."

Zero nodded in understanding and looked around. "So… Now that we're here, now what?"

"I guess we all take a nap and then discuss." Gingka yawned and stretched. "We've done a lot of flying today and even some fighting."

"We'll get more provisions for dinner." Chimera said, putting her helmet back on and heading for the cave entrance, where she shifted into the fearsome beast that she was just under the skin, snake's head lashing the air while the lion's head bared its teeth.

"Sounds good to me." Ifrit yawned, flopping down on the ground next to her blader and stretching. "We'll just wait here."

"I can help with the hunt if needed." Tatsuhime said calmly.

"Probably best if you are not seen." Chimera replied from her goat's head, which turned back to look at them. "We can do the hunting well enough with six pairs of eyes between the two of us. It won't take long."

"Fair enough." Kaminari said, unbuckling some of her armor as she sat down to get comfortable. "We'll wait and begin our planning while you work on that, then rest after we eat and set out as soon as possible to take down Mao."

"Sounds good to me." Gingka said.

"Mao will be beginning to expect an attack since he knows we are gathering together. The fact that the L-Drago triplets spotted us and knew that some of us were grouped is enough reason to expect that, as well as Kaminari's recent rescue." Shinigami said. "Whatever we do has to be so unexpected that Mao will have no time to attack back."

"Agreed." Tatsuhime said. "While he knows we are grouped we do have the advantage of him not knowing precisely where we are."

"Also, he will go after the bladers to an extent for sure." Anubis said. "Because he knows that without them, we're weaker."

"Good thing I trained them in a bit of swordplay then." Raiden said. "Before we came here. Mao will not be an opponent they can hold off, but they'll be able to block at least some attacks to allow us time to jump over there if we need to."

"The bladers should stay out of Mao's sight if you ask me." Quetzalcoatl said, crossing her arms. "It'd be too risky to let Mao see them."

"He'd be able to find them and it would be difficult to keep them safe if we're not near them and he went after them. Especially if he simply wrecked everything in the general area of the fight, which they'd have to be in in order to give us any sort of orders."

"I've got an idea then." Gingka said, an amused smirk playing across his face, "But you'll probably call me a reckless idiot for it."

"... Dare we ask what your idea even is then?" Ryuga sneered.

"We ride just like we have been. Right up into the battle. We'd be with our beys and as long as we could stay seated, those of us who can ride, we'd be pretty safe."

"... It would be dangerous but it's better than hiding in a building." Kaminari said.

"It would allow us to focus on only one objective rather than two, so long as, as Gingka said, the bladers could stay with us." Shinigami said, looking thoughtful.

"And those of us who are not shaped for riding?" Tatsuhime raised an eyebrow. "It would be quite difficult and tiring for Ifrit's blader to remain with her in that fashion."

"Not with the training I've given him! He can hold on, count on it!" Benkei exclaimed proudly.

Zero grinned sheepishly. "Uh, Manager, we should probably test that theory before counting on it…"

"So a practice obstacle course that can test the limits of his grip strength." Raiden said. "Because Ifrit will be busy with her sword and can't hold him on her back, assuming that's where he'd be."

"... There is such a thing as rope." Bull spoke up, sweatdropping.

"... We could use that too." Benkei said sheepishly.

"If we even have some." Anubis pointed out.

"I'm sure that they have some around here somewhere." Ifrit said. "We just gotta ask or something."

"Okay, so the bladers are riding with us then… It's not preferable though and it is very risky." Shinigami said.

"But do we really have a choice if we want them involved in the battle?" Raiden pointed out. "Mao can level just about any building we could hide them in."

Kaminari nodded. "Not preferable but it's the best option to have them close enough to direct our actions. The only other option, and the safe one, is to leave them in a safe place, but that would be detrimental to our power."

"... We're really doing this." Zero spoke up softly, looking to his friends, who nodded.

"Never thought we'd have to face this threat since it was taken care of before." Shinobu said. "But I'm sure we can do it."

Kaminari looked at her blader with a slightly raised eyebrow, noting that he had suddenly fallen deep into thought.

"What is it?" She asked silently, her voice only heard by Gingka.

The redhead glanced at the armored bey with a calm gaze, then looked to the younger bladers chatting nervously nearby about the battle at hand.

"You do not want this to cost any lives." Kaminari raised an eyebrow as she sent the thought into his mind.

Gingka silently nodded, sighing softly and stretching out his legs, crossing his arms and staring off into space, his mind shifting back to the events of the last time he had encountered Nemesis, the time he and everyone else had dearly hoped would be the last time they would ever have to deal with such a frightful adversary. He remembered how scared he, and everyone else, had been, despite how well they had hidden it. Most likely, the only one in this room who knew how he had felt was Kaminari. The other legendary beys, save Tatsuhime, might have a general impression of it, but only the bey that had stood by his side as he fought alone could really know, even if he talked about it with others.

"Come. Let's go elsewhere." Kaminari's voice whinnied in his mind again and he nodded slightly, standing slowly and slipping out almost without anyone else noticing, save Raiden, who was told to stay behind and say that they had gone for a walk if anyone else noticed their absence.

"You are frightened again." Kaminari stated as soon as they were out of earshot of the others.

Gingka sighed. "How can I not be? The nightmares of the first time still haunt me sometimes."

"Understandable." Kaminari said calmly, crossing her arms, her armor clinking softly against itself as she did so. "But you are afraid for more than just yourself this time as well."

"They're the future of our world. I can't let them get hurt." Gingka said. "I'd assume you understand what I mean, since Ifrit and the others are also your future, despite your general immortality thing."

"Long lifespans do help with preserving our species." Kaminari nodded. "There is a chance that everything could end here for everyone and if it does then both worlds will be destroyed and nobody will be able to stop Mao."

Gingka sweatdropped. "That's such a helpful thought."

Kaminari shrugged. "Mere fact. But I've known you long enough that this fear won't stop you from battling anyway."

"Of course not." Gingka grinned sheepishly. "Especially since I know that it is possible to defeat him."

"But your fear might stop your proteges from battling due to your desire to keep them out of danger." Kaminari said.

Gingka sighed and nodded. "This isn't a danger I'd wish on anyone else. Nemesis was my battle before, my generation's battle. Now he's back for whatever reason and we have to finish what we started."

"Simple failing of our jail's security systems. The seal was not strong enough." Kaminari said. "But if you cannot keep from fighting then what makes you think you can stop them?"

"... You have a point, but still." Gingka sighed. "They've never dealt with something like this, and they still have quite a long way to go as bladers."

"They rescued us from the DNA before." Kaminari pointed out.

"I know that. And I'm still proud of them for it." Gingka paused and looked at the sky. "I just wonder if they're ready for this… We barely survived it, so do they even stand a chance?"

"Did we?" Kaminari said pointedly, putting a hand on his shoulder and staring intently into his eyes.

Gingka hesitated in thought. "If you look at the statistics, no."

"But if you look at what happened, we did, unknowingly."

"They still have much less experience and power than they did then. I still haven't really been able to teach them a lot of what I knew automatically from growing up in Koma Village. They also lack that extra Star Fragment power that you and the others have." Gingka said.

"So did your friends and their beys who joined when they weren't supposed to." Kaminari said. "Yet they survived."

Gingka sighed. "The threat is different this time, Kaminari."

"More lives are immediately at stake, yes." Kaminari said calmly. "But we need all the help we can get."

"I know… That's why I didn't already tell them to stay back." Gingka sighed.

"There is no way of being ready for a fight like this. It's one that just has to be fought and won no matter what the cost, because the cost of losing is much greater than the cost of winning could be. Even if that cost means death to all those who are battling."

Gingka looked up at the sky, his face deathly solemn. "Mao will have to kill me before he hurts any of those bladers." He said determinedly. "I have to get them home safely from here."

"We cannot prevent their involvement in this battle." Kaminari nodded. "But I do share the feeling."

Gingka sighed through his nose. "I don't know what I'd do if they were hurt or killed under my watch."

"They aren't toddlers, Gingka."

"But they are young."

"So were you. It is a difficult decision. But your father made it before. I suggest you follow his lead and then return safely to him once more." Kaminari said calmly, dropping her hand from her blader's shoulder.

Gingka released a faint smile at this, nodding in agreement. "We just have to defeat him a second time… And this time… Once and for all."

* * *

 **Soooo... Long unplanned hiatus for me, huh? But I am FINALLY back and on the track of writing. This is the first chapter I've completed since the end of last November and NaNoWriMo. (Chapter 16 doesn't count, it was completed during NaNoWriMo and I had just forgotten to post it.) But I'm baaaack! With some new ideas, probably not one but TWO potential rewrites (One of which is my other in-progress story, Eye of the Storm 2. I'm not satisfied with it right now ehe.) The other? Well that's a surprise! (I can't wait to revive the old idea, hehe. Gonna be sooo fun.) Anyway, my long hiatus can only really be explained by the fact that I've been playing waaaay too much League of Legends lately but oh well. I'm back! And hopefully for good because THE NEXT CHAPTER IS DA BATTLE YO! (... When did I start using 'yo' at all? Ah well. Hyper Gala is hyper because she finished a chapter.) Anyway, enjoy!**


	19. Finale

The only thing to be heard the next morning was silence as Gingka and the others mounted up and set off for their ultimate destination. The usual nervous chatter that Zero and his friends had been engaging in the night before had been quieted by the tension in the air. The seriousness of the battle now immediately at hand had not made itself known to the younger bladers as soon as it had to the older, but now it was weighing as heavily in Zero's heart as it was in Gingka's.

The younger blader glanced behind Ifrit at Gingka, who had his back turned and was quietly preoccupying himself fidgeting with some of the straps on Kaminari's body armor as the winged horse stood calmly, nose pointed to the sky as she sniffed the air and judged the wind conditions that she would need to account for in her takeoff.

"He's nervous too… I've never seen him this quiet, especially not before a battle." the Ifrit blader whispered, mostly to himself.

"This is a serious battle, and he's fought it before." Shinobu pointed out. "He knows how hard it's going to be… We can only imagine it."

"Yeah since we barely remember it." Ren sighed, joining her friends.

"Even a perfect strategy may not work for this one, and we have one." Kite said, sighing and adjusting his glasses.

"Your strategies against Gingka never work anyway." Zero made an attempt at laughing as Kita half-heartedly glared at him.

"It's time to go." Gingka called, barely loudly enough for the others to hear him.

Zero and the others glanced at each other worriedly before scrambling onto the backs of their respective beys and nodding to the others. Shinigami and Ares helped tie a rope securely around Zero and Ifrit so that the blader would not fall off, making a safety release just in case it was needed.

"Calm down." Kaminari nickered softly as Gingka slipped one foot into the stirrup. The redhead paused, both hands pressed down into the saddle as he nodded silently before jumping up and swinging his other leg over the horse's back, making sure he was comfortably seated before looking around at the others.

"We all know what's at stake here." He said, outwardly calm, although his voice trembled ever so slightly as he spoke. "Let's do this thing."

"And win!" Zero added, punching the air determinedly.

"For both of our worlds." Raiden agreed, stomping one hoof on the ground for emphasis.

"He will not defeat us this time." Ryuga and Tatsuhime said together as Ryuga stepped calmly atop his dragon's head and stood there with his arms crossed, looking rather impressive before seating himself just behind the horns of the enormous creature.

"Then we're off." Gingka said, drawing the spare sword he was wearing at his side and hoisting it high above his head before pointing it forwards as the signal to charge.

As one unit, all of the beys darted forwards, rocketing towards the edge of the island with Gingka and Kaminari leading the charge, multiple glowing colors illuminating the darkened forest brilliantly as hooves and paws and booted feet thundered through the terrain, multiple voices both human and non-human releasing a battle cry so loud that it dared any who heard to come stand against the incredible force currently making its way straight for the main island and Mao himself.

"Sire, they are making their move." Karayan roared downwards as he stood atop the building where he and his siblings were assisting Mao in ruling.

"Let them come, the fools, worms that they are. They could not stand against my reawakening and now that I have gained more power, they will not be able to defeat me like they did last time." a deep voice said, throbbing with undertones of power and a slight maniacal chuckle.

"They have their bladers with them this time, my lord. At least that idiot Hagane, if not more of them."

"He wouldn't dare come alone." Mao snorted as he joined his lackey on the top of the building, dark robes flowing around him in a rather ethereal manner. "But I will make sure that coming at all means death for them all. By escaping my prisons they have only prolonged their suffering and increased my anger towards them."

"What should we do, sire?" Nereza snarled as she stepped up, bowing her head before Mao in respect.

"Welcome them, of course. Welcome them with the dark flames that you were born to trail so devastatingly and show them once more the true power of the three dragons. Welcome them to their demise, their despair, their imminent deaths. If it's a fight they want, it's destruction they will get! We battle within the depths of Hades. Bring me Kerbecs so that I can utilize his chains to restrain them and drain all hope of escape before finally plunging them into darkness."

"Understood." The two dragons replied, grinning maniacally at the thought of a full-on battle as they slithered off to get their brother and Kerbecs as ordered.

"He's noticed our approach." Kaminari whinnied as she noted the clouds above beginning to swirl and storm angrily at them.

"Be careful! He could strike at any moment." Gingka called to the rest of the group, glancing back in his seat.

The very next instant, roaring echoed from just above them, among the clouds.

"Here it comes!" Raiden said, rolling to the side to dodge the chains that lashed out at the group.

"Do not get caught in those! It's just Kerbecs!" Gingka yelled.

"'Just'?!" Zero and the others yelped as they all barely managed to evade the chains that threatened to drag them upwards into the enormous gate that they could see silhouetted among the clouds above, three pairs of glowing red eyes looking down on them.

"Be right back!" Gingka called as Kaminari made an abrupt dash for the gate.

"What the-?! Gingka that's dangerous!" Zero shouted.

"It's Hagane, just let him do what he wants. He gets killed it's his fault." Ryuga roared as Tatsuhime attempted, and mostly succeeded, melting the chains.

"Pegasus! Storm Bringer!" Gingka whooped, clearly forgetting for the moment the seriousness of the situation they were currently in. Then again, Kaminari mused as she promptly obeyed the order and engulfed herself in flames, this was Gingka, and they had defeated this opponent before.

"Dragons incoming!" Quetalcoatl shrieked, pointing with one wing before launching herself towards the three-headed dragon form that was slithering towards them at a rapid pace.

"They're mine!" Ryuga and Raiden exclaimed at once before glancing at each other.

"You can have two heads." Raiden offered before spreading his wings and soaring upwards, his attack preparation not unnoticed by Gingka as the redhead and Kaminari struck Kerbecs back through his gate, which Katsutoshi soon blew shut with a tornado ejected from his wide-open jaws.

"He doesn't stand a chance against us now." Kaminari snorted. "Nobody here short of Mao would. At least, nobody we intend to battle today."

"We had best push on before we tire ourselves out too much." Katsutoshi said.

"Yeah just as soon as- Raiden, Starblast Attack!" Gingka interrupted himself as he spotted that Raiden had reached the peak of his upward flight. The other blue, winged horse immediately whinnied loudly and barreled back downwards towards one dragon's head, stomping it into the ground and effectively preventing it from biting Ryuga's head off as the Dragon Emperor and his Empress coiled tightly around the other two heads, effectively preventing them from fighting back any further.

"Give up, fools! You will never be as strong as I, no matter how many of you are added together into one bey. Your time is finished!" Tatsuhime snarled, opening her jaws wide in the faces of the two she had entangled in her own coils.

"Fool!" Karayan, who was now slightly dizzied by Raiden's attack, split off from his siblings and flew straight at the winged stallion, fully intending to rip his throat out should he get the chance.

"Not today." Raiden said, looping around and maneuvering so as to outfly the enormous serpent behind him.

"Should we bother helping him or should I command him from here?" Gingka asked, watching Raiden as he kept a firm grip on Kaminari's back.

"Up to you. You're in charge." The winged mare replied, not taking her eyes off of the closed Hades Gate, fully expecting it to spring open again at any moment.

"We may as well be sure and get this over with." Gingka said, leaning slightly towards the other winged horse as an indicator to his mount that he was going to attack after all.

Kaminari promptly whirled about and dove for the head of the purple dragon, kicking it downwards before joining her brother's flight path.

"Let's end this." Gingka called to the two, who nodded and began flying in the same pattern.

"This oughta be good." Shinobu called to his friends, pointing up to Gingka as the redhead closed his eyes and took a deep breath, preparing to work with both Pegasus beys at once.

"Pegasus!" He yelled, not opening his eyes just yet. Both winged horses whirled in their flight and spiraled down to the ground, landing hard and picking up speed as they galloped for several long seconds before Gingka opened his eyes and commanded them to launch back into the air.

"Dragon Empress Soaring Destruction!"

"Pegasus, Dual Star Gazer Attack!"

"Was it really necessary for both of them to attack when just one of them could have easily taken out that dragon?" Benkei laughed as he watched from below.

"No time to discuss that now." Thorgisl said solemnly, pointing upwards towards the horizon. Approaching rapidly was an enormous black dragon with a lion's mane and the wings of the horse that Gingka was still seated astride.

"Fools! Worms! You really think that coming out to fight me will save you now? For one of you that nearly, and should have, ended in your utter demise!" Mao roared as he approached, jaws dripping with darkness.

"Remain calm." Kaminari nickered, feeling Gingka's grip on her tighten in fear. The redhead nodded, something within his eyes and mind steeling for the battle that was rapidly approaching.

"Even with more allies than you had last time you cannot hope to ever defeat me. You will watch both worlds crumble before your eyes while you are helpless to do anything about it and your own torment."

"Those lines are getting old, Nemesis." Gingka shouted back, his eyes flashing. "You're the one who should have learned from the last battle. All we learned was that you're defeatable and we are going to do it again!"

"Get into formation, idiots." Ryuga said as he and Tatsuhime flew past the others in order to reposition themselves for a better attack.

Zero and his friends gulped and did so, standing just behind the Legendary Beys as they had been instructed to do.

"Give him no openings." Katsutoshi growled, stepping up and planting his claws deeply into the ground, ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

"I will swallow you all in darkness!" Mao roared, breathing precisely that from his jaws.

"We'll just break through it! Go, Pegasus!" Gingka released the battle cry as Kaminari and Raiden began spiraling straight for the attack, perfectly mirroring each other

"Tatsuhime!" Ryuga snarled, determined to unleash the first strike on the enemy before him.

"Get into position, now!" Thorgisl exclaimed to his fellow legendary beys as he surged forwards, firing off a volley of arrows towards their looming opponent.

Zero gulped, eyes wide in utter fear at the monster overhead. He had thought that surging into battle would be easy, as Gingka made it look, but he was frozen stiff at the sight of Mao now that he saw him.

"Zero." Benkei said. "Stay strong. We'll be fine. Just battle like you always do, with nothing held back." Benkei said as he raised a fist to the sky and let out his trademark cry of "Bu-bu-bu-bull!" he and his bey surging forwards just behind the front line of the Legendary Beys.

"Foolish!" Mao cackled as he flared darkness not only from his mouth but from his entire body, engulfing the entire group in a pitch black shockwave that they could not see through.

"Look out!" A panicked-sounding cry from Gingka was the last thing anyone heard as the light left them.

"There is no escape from this! I am finally able to truly engulf everything just as I intended to before you worms stopped me." Mao cackled, his voice the first thing heard after the darkness took over.

Zero shook, feeling like a small child again, afraid of the dark. This time, however, there was a legitimate reason, for this was unfortunately no imaginary monster that he faced. The shockwave of the dark energy had knocked Ifrit and everyone else sprawling to the ground, and Zero was glad for the ropes securing him to his bey, preventing him from being knocked away from her and totally alone.

"Is everyone okay?!" Ifrit shouted out, but nobody answered.

"Ifrit…" Zero whispered, gripping onto the familiar red armor for comfort. "We have to get out of here…"

"We have to fight this somehow… I don't know which direction I'm facing." Ifrit replied.

"We have to find the others…"

"If any of them are still together. Mao was definitely trying to separate us." Ifrit said, reaching through the darkness for anything to grab onto that she could determine some sort of direction from. Zero found, much to his interest, that the darkness actually let him feel what the armored warrior was feeling. He closed his eyes as he, through Ifrit's hands, felt something rough and scaly.

"Uhh… Tatsuhime?" Ifrit guessed slowly.

Zero snapped his eyes open. "Ifrit, Burning Uppercut!" He yelled, purely out of instinct. A blazing sword seared through his vision for an instant as Ifrit obeyed the order promptly, although Zero could feel her confusion. An agonized roar filled with deep, dark undertones soon filled the air.

"FOOL! How DARE you strike me like that! You shall be tormented even more now for your insolence! Just give up!" Mao roared, angry at being suddenly struck by what had really felt like a simple toothpick to him.

"Run!" Zero yelped, leaning backwards and away from the enormous monster that he had just dared antagonize in its own domain.

Ifrit promptly turned and ran, blindly. "Not Tatsuhime, NOT TATSUHIME!" She screeched loudly.

"But this is." The female dragon's voice soon sounded nearby as a meteor shower lit up the darkness for split seconds at a time, one blast knocking Ifrit sprawling on her face.

"We can only hear people nearby, got it." Zero panted as he laid there, trembling in disbelief at what he had just done.

"What will it be, Hagane? Are you afraid now? Which of your friends shall I devour first? I'm thinking the little worm that dared attack me!"

"Don't… You… Dare." Gingka growled, slowly getting up from the ground and standing, panting heavily. The shockwave had knocked him off Kaminari's back and he had fallen for quite a distance before landing and knocking the air out of his lungs. "You'll have to go through me before you get to any of them!" He shouted.

Zero's head perked up at this." I hear Gingka!" He exclaimed quietly.

"You know where none of your little friends are. Not even your beloved partners, who I have knocked from the sky once and for all now. No more will your wings spread." Mao cackled.

Gingka took deeper breaths to remain calm and reached for his sword, glad that Raiden had trained him in some swordplay beforehand. His only problem was that he could not see his opponent in the slightest, and that he had no clue where or when backup was coming. But he could not run. Afraid as he was, Gingka was never one to run away from a battle when he may be the only one standing between the battle and the survival of friends and allies.

"How do you hope to ever fight in this darkness that only I can see through? You are at an even greater disadvantage than you were before. The odds against you are stacking ever higher. I would suggest that you surrender but it would not change your inevitable fate, only prolong its coming."

Gingka narrowed his eyes, trying to peer through the darkness even though he knew it was pointless. He slowly turned his body, trying to even determine where Mao's voice was coming from.

"I have watched endlessly how to best kill humans. Over the thousands of years that I lay dormant I was able to see what went on above my resting place." Mao taunted, approaching Gingka slowly and reveling in the fear that he felt barely contained from the blader who had so bravely stood against him, and still dared to. "I could kill any one of your so-called friends at any moment, or I could kill you, and none of them would come to help you. They are all afraid of me and cannot come to help you."

"Cliche." Gingka replied, his hands sweating as he grasped the hilt of his sword with both hands, trying desperately to figure out where either Kaminari or Raiden was, or anyone for that matter. He suddenly felt his back pressed up against something solid, causing him to freeze as a shiver ran down his back, his senses immediately telling him what he had found in the darkness. He began to whirl, only for a large hand to clamp over his nose and mouth, mostly cutting off his air and leaving his lungs burning for it.

"Cliche, hm? So is you saying that I'll have to go through you to touch your friends. Dare you follow through with that statement?" Mao's voice chuckled in the redhead's ear.

Gingka let out a muffled cry of panic as he felt something sharp press against his chest, just enough to scare him without actually hurting him… yet. He was in the one position he had never intended to get himself into, and for once he had no backup or way of defending himself.

"Are you ready now to give up and sink into the defeat that you deserve, that is you place?" Mao asked, angrily. "I would be perfectly fine with locking you up and watching your hope drain, or with inflicting a fatal wound on you and watching as the hope drains from your friends' eyes as they watch you die. Both would be very satisfying to me."

"Someone… Please…" Gingka thought frantically, barely able to think clearly much less fight back against an opponent who was physically stronger than he was.

"Oh but I cannot relish both forever and really I can only do one, now can't I?" Mao mused, drinking in the panic of his prey. "If I kill you now you won't see the destruction of everything you ever tried to protect. But if I make you watch that then killing you wouldn't be so satisfying."

Gingka growled under his breath, his mind in turmoil as he tried to decide what he should do, or even if there was anything he could do.

"Really, it's quite-" Mao began, but was, much to his and Gingka's surprise, interrupted by a pair of swords crossing themselves neatly over his throat and another being pressed against the center of his back.

"Checkmate." not one, but two angered voices said sternly.

"So you managed to, somehow, find out where I was, hm?" Mao chuckled darkly, standing still except for a slight tightening of his grip on Gingka's face, causing a muffled sound of protest from the redhead. "This is not checkmate, worms. This is only the beginning. I have already begun your defeat."

"Keep talking. Your foul breath is attracting the worms one by one." Kaminari growled, using her twin blades to pull Mao further back against her brother's sword.

"Excellent. Then I can kill him in front of you all." Mao said calmly.

"As if you'll ever get the chance." Raiden snapped, the tip of his sword forcing Mao to bend backwards slightly to avoid being killed by Kaminari's swords at his throat.

"I already have my blade at his heart and it would only take a second. He is too afraid to even attempt commanding you two to do anything and the rest of your little friends wouldn't dare do anything to rescue him for fear that I kill him first." Mao cackled.

Gingka closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, trying to force himself to think through the fear and lack of air. He gave one simple command to the two Pegasus beys standing behind Mao, ready to make their best attempt at killing the dark bey should his death be caused.

"Unleash it all. Now." Gingka thought, suddenly becoming deathly calm, which slightly unnerved Mao.

"You heard him." Kaminari said calmly as she and Raiden slowly removed their blades from Mao's throat and back, much to the evil bey's surprise, although the two wondered how exactly they were going to accomplish Mao's defeat without losing their blader.

"Surrender then, is it?" Mao chuckled darkly. "Then I have made my decision. I'll kill him now."

"No!" Zero's voice yelled out from the darkness, surprisingly close by.

The very next instant, everything happened at once. Ifrit's sword ignited and flashed close across Gingka's blurred vision. Mao's grip on the redhead's face tightened, cutting off his air supply completely as the point of the blade that had been at Gingka's heart was knocked aside. A strong, heavy force knocked both Gingka and Mao back, forcing the dark bey to release his hold on Gingka and sending both of them sprawling as the light returned abruptly.

"Gingka! Are you alright?!" Zero exclaimed, shakily untying himself from Ifrit and rushing to his mentor, who had rolled onto his side and was coughing and gasping for breath.

"That was too close." Benkei said as he slid one arm around Gingka's shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

Gingka merely nodded, still too out of breath to speak but immensely relieved that he could breathe, at least.

"Let's finish this." Raiden said as he skidded to a halt next to them before darting back forwards to where his sister was engaging Mao.

Gingka nodded and sucked in a few deep breaths before pulling himself away from Benkei's support and standing on his own. "Pegasus!" He called in a slightly hoarse but determined tone. Immediately, the two broke off their attack and flew to him, switching back to beast forms. Gingka remounted Kaminari the moment she reached him.

"No more doing this alone." He said firmly, mostly to himself before looking up towards the enemy at hand, whom he was now determined to defeat once and for all, without holding back.

"We're right behind you." Katsutoshi snarled as he stepped up next to them.

Gingka nodded. "All together now!" He shouted, leaning forwards in the saddle and holding on tightly.

"Care to count us off?" Zero asked as he slipped back into the ropes that secured him to Ifrit.

Gingka chuckled. "We may as well… Three! Two! One! Let it rip!"

At the cry, all of the beys surged forwards, a wall of raw power and flame approaching Mao rapidly as one unit, various voices calling out special moves as roaring and whinnying and battle cries echoed through the devastated city around them.

"Fools! You rush towards your destruction!" Mao yelled.

"Yeah well you know what? Bad breath attracts bugs!" Ren shouted as all of the attacks made contact with the enormous dark creature looming over them.

"Zeus's Barrier!" Gingka yelled out as the required beys for the seal got swiftly into position, the others remaining outside the circle and keeping Mao inside it.

"No! I will not allow this!" Mao roared as the four seasons, Tatsuhime and Thorgisl combining their power, forced him to remain still with their power.

"You're already finished!" Ryuga roared as all of the beys called out the fullest extent of their power and threw it at Mao simultaneously. The dark being roared angrily as a blinding light filled the air, his roar being abruptly cut off as he was, once again, sealed, but this time for good.

"Thank goodness…" Gingka and the others breathed, the tension in the air releasing at last as the light faded.

"We… We did it…?" Zero breathed, staring in shock at where Mao had just been as Ifrit dropped to her hands and knees, exhausted.

"We did…" Gingka confirmed as he and the Pegasus beys landed nearby, Gingka sliding off and leaning against the heaving sides of the winged horse he had been riding.

"I think we've earned a break… Good job, everyone…" Kaminari said softly, nudging Gingka to stop leaning on her as she shifted back to humanoid form, along with her brother, the two hugging each other in relief.

"Bu-bu-bu-bull! We did it!" Benkei whooped, punching the air with one fist as he slid off Bull's back and hugged the neck of the creature.

"I'm… Ready to go home now." Shinobu spoke up, chuckling softly at Benkei.

"Then let's go…" Gingka whispered faintly, looking up to the sky with a faint smile crossing his lips. He could not describe the relief that he felt, and the sense of calm welling up inside him at having not only defeated Nemesis, but having escaped unscathed, although it had been close. He walked slowly to the two blue-haired beys that he as proud to work with, putting one arm around each and hugging them tightly. Kaminari and Raiden promptly hugged back, bowing their heads slightly and smiling.

"We did it. Let's go home."

* * *

 **Aaand... Done! That's it! This is the final chapter! I'm not going to make a story announcement here because for one thing, I still have Eye of the Storm 2 to finish, and for another, I don't actually know what I'll be doing next. Anyway, keep an eye out for either the final chapters of EotS2 OR, potentially (and more likely) a rewrite of it, because I haven't been satisfied with how it has been going. If not either of those, then a rewrite of an old major project that I hinted at in the last chapter (although that will be longer in coming due to the sheer length of the darn thing...) Anyway, until I get around to one of those, Galaxy out!**


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